جهان بانکداری خصوصی (مطالعاتی در تاریخ بانکداری و مالی)

Rothschild isthe first name to spring to mind in connection with private banks– even though Walter Bagehot did notconsider the Rothschilds as bankers in the narrow English sense of the word,i.e. deposit takers, but as ‘immense capitalists’. As Niall Ferguson clearlyshows in chapter 1, the Rothschilds were the world’s largest private bank formost of the nineteenth century and recognised as such by their contemporaries.The Rothschilds might appear as the archetypal private bankers because of thisimmediate association between their name and their trade, yet in almost everyother respect they were truly exceptional. In terms of size,they were not only the largest private bank; the group’s resources (withbanks in Frankfurt, London, Paris, Vienna and Naples) remained larger thanthose ofany jointstock bank well until the 1880s, even though the latter included clients’ deposits.In terms of wealth, they were collectively the world’s richest family. The linkskeeping the family together were tighter than for other international banking dynasties,such as the Bischoffsheim, the Speyers, the Seligmans and others, with anexceptionally high rate of intermarriage within the Rothschild family (14 outof18 at the second generation, and still 13 out of 30 at the thirdgeneration). Like that of thebanking house that has produced them, the wealth of the Rothschild archives istruly exceptional. As Victor Gray and Melanie Aspey show in chapter 2, despiteunavoidable loss and destruction, they are of unrivalledinterest not only to banking and financial historians, but also to thoseconcernedwithpolitical, social, cultural, art and even natural history. The richest materialconsists of the letters (some 20,000 in total) that the five brotherswrote to each other between 1814 and 1868; written in Judendeutsch, and thusextremely difficult to understand, they have recently been translated andtranscribed. Butthere also theletters from the Rothschilds’ correspondents and agents (hundredsof thousands) as well as a huge non-banking material, related to thevery widerange ofactivities in which the family has been involved. In the last twenty years orso, the collections of the Rothschild Archives have been promoted to a wideaudience, not least through the publication of a guide, available on the Archive’swebsite. They are now the responsibility of the Rothschild Archive Trust, acharitable trust created in 1999 to ensure the future of the collection and encourageinternational research.The role of private banks in the new financial and corporate environmentcreated, from the mid-nineteenth century, by the growth of the joint stockbanks is of particular interest to their long-term historical development. Thequestion is examined in chapter 3 by Youssef Cassis, who rejects a ‘decline andfall’ framework of analysis and shows, on the contrary, that the fate ofprivate banks varied considerably depending on the country, region, or bankingactivity. Private bankers engaged in international finance were far moresuccessful in the City of London, where merchant banks were able to maintaintheir hold on the huge accepting and issuing businesses, than in Paris andBerlin, where the competition from the joint stock banks was much stiffer.Conversely, private deposit banking declined sharply in Britain, but survivedin France and Germany, where hundreds of private country banks providedagricultural credit and industrial finance to small and medium-sizedenterprises in the provinces, from which the joint stock banks were mostlyabsent. In both cases, private banks were able to find a niche where theyenjoyed a competitive advantage against the big banks. Private bankers, above allmembers of the haute banque in continental Europe, also played adecisive role in the creation of the new joint stock banks, usually to seizethe opportunity to raise vast amounts of capital in order to financelarge-scale investment. They were often able to keep a strategic control overthese new institutions, at any rate until the First World War – a successprimarily attributable to their socio-professional status and their network ofrelationships. Not surprisingly, international bankers proved more successfulthan country bankers over the longer term, whether as private bankers or asdirectors of joint stock banks. While the latter were all but wiped out by thedepression of the 1930s, the latter survived well into the 1960s.In chapter 4, Philip Cottrell provides a thoroughanalysis of the institutionalchanges taking placein the centre of world finance, the City of London, duringthe middle decades of the nineteenthcentury. Cottrell describes the years 1855– 1883 as London’s ‘First Big Bang’,a critical period comparable, in terms of institutional restructuring, to the‘Financial Revolution’ of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuriesand ‘Big Bang’ in the late twentieth century. The changes were brought about bya combination of economic and political developments – the decline of theinland bill of exchange and Britain’s increasing exports of capital and theliberalization of company legislation, with the introduction of limitedliability and its later extension to banking. The result was the creation ofnumerous corporatefinancial institutions which came to dominate most ofthe City’s activities.This pattern ofbusiness development, leading to the ultimate demise of privatebanks, is reflected in the banks’ archives. Large commercial banks,especiallyin Britain,have been formed through an amalgamation process involving scores of privatebanks – well over 100 in the case of the NatWest Group (nowincorporated into Royal Bank of Scotland), discussed by Fiona Maccoll inchapter5. Theirrecords are uneven, the archives of small, short-lived banks having often disappeared.In the case of private banks, the distinction between family and businesspapers is not always apparent, especially in the early days of private bankers,and the former can often fruitfully complement the latter. However, somefamily papers, including private account books and correspondence, didfind theirway into theparent bank’s archives, thus shedding further light on the activities of severalhouses, including the Smith banking partnerships, Jones Loyd, Becketts, Prescotts,or Stuckeys – all well-known names in Victorian Britain.Internationalfinance has traditionally been private bankers’ privileged domain of activity.This is vividly illustrated by the activities and organization of the leading Anglo-Americanhouses in the nineteenth century, studied by Edwin Perkins in chapter 6.Perkins takes a long-term view and shows how the Anglo-American market movedfrom being dominated by trade and trade-financing activities in the lateeighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to a strong emphasis on large capitaltransfers through portfolio investment in the second half of the nineteenth century.Six leadinghouses dominated that market: Barings, Browns, Rothschilds, Peabody/Morgan,Seligmans, and Kuhn Loeb. These houses undoubtedly belonged to a group known inFrance as the ‘Haute Banque’ – the upper echelons, in both professional andsocial terms, of the private banking world, discussed by Alain Plessis inchapter 7. The group was never very clearly defined, as membership wasunofficial and based on prestige and reputation. Nevertheless, Plessis clearlyunderlines its international dimension, which can be seen as one of itsdefining characteristics. It is significant, for example, that the bankingfamilies making up the ‘Haute Banque’ were often from foreign origins,especially as far as its Protestant and Jewish components were concerned.Moreover, these families retained links with their friends and relatives inforeign countries, not least through marriages and intermarriages, henceappearing as a cosmopolitan world, not entirely assimilated into the French elite.This internationalism was reinforced by travelling, especially in the form of apprenticeshipsand work experience with a friendly firm in a foreign country. Throughout thenineteenth century, the City of London was the world’s leadingfinancial centre, and Baring Brothers were only second to theRothschilds in the field of international banking and finance. In chapter 8,John Orbell providesa usefuloverview of the London merchant banks’ main activities, focusing on the case ofBaring Brothers. They ranged from merchanting and agency work tocorporate finance advice, private banking, and security management. Twoof them, however, were at the core of their business: finance of internationaltrade andsecurityissuance, and are rightly paid closer attention. One of the chapter’s main interestsis the way John Orbell not only presents the very rich material available inthe ING Baring archives (accounts, correspondence with clients and agents,information books and so on), with occasional reference to that of othermerchantbanks, butalso underlines its relevance to the study of all aspects of merchant banks’activities, and identifies the areas which have remained unexplored andcould benefit from systematic use of the records – the whole amounting to aresearchprogramme onprivate banks and the international economy.Dieter Ziegler and Luciano Segreto reassess, inchapters 9 and 10, the role and importance of private bankers duringindustrialization and the alleged reasons for their decline. Both take issuewith the widely accepted Gerschenkronian argument that only joint-stock bankscould supply the necessary capital to leading-sector industries. Socio-cultural factors, primarily religion, have beenan integral part of private banking, possibly more so than in any othereconomic activity. In chapter 12 Ginette Kurgan-van Hentenryck provides ananalytical survey of the economic role, socialposition andpolitical influence of Jewish private bankers in the nineteenth andtwentieth centuries, emphasizing theimportance of personal and family networks.Theiractivities originated in the eighteenth century in trade finance in Britain, ininternational finance in France, in the securities business in the Netherlands,and in the businessactivities of the Hofjuden in Germany. From then on theirfinancial transactions, and often the families themselves, spread acrossEurope’s main financial centres and, later in the nineteenth century, New York.Government loans, as well as trade finance in Britain, made up an essentialpart of their business,though railway promotion should not be underestimated, especially inFrance and Germany. Jewish private bankers were also instrumental in thecreation of the early joint stock banks, beginning with the Banque de Belgiquein 1835 and including the Crédit Mobilier of the Pereire brothers in France aswell as the four ‘D’ Banks in Germany – Darmstädter, Disconto, Deutsche andDresdner. Their economicinfluence waned afterthe First World War, and they were eliminated by the Naziregime in Germany. However, throughout thetwentieth century, they retained a high degree of creativity, as witnessed bythe role of Lazards in the merger and acquisition business or of Warburgs inthe birth of the Euromarkets.The othermajor religious network, that of Protestant bankers, is analysed by the lateMartin Körner, who rightly points out in chapter 13 that, unlike Jewish bankers,who were part of a religious minority in all the countries where they traded,Protestant bankers became part of the majority in Lutheran and Calvinist countriesduring the sixteenth century. Social statushas been an essential attribute of private bankers – resulting from theirwealth, family inheritance and gradual integration into the upper classes. Fromthe late nineteenth century, respectability and connections in the highestsocial circles still enabled private bankers to deal with the most exclusive customers,not least foreign governments, even though their firms were dwarfed in size bythe joint stock banks. Social status entailed responsibilities. As Pat Thane clearlyshows in chapter 14, elites were committed to philanthropy in Victorian andEdwardian England, a commitment led by the Royal Family. For the financial elites,especially the newcomers and parvenus, supporting the numerous charities of thePrince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, was the price to pay for gaining socialrespectability. However, she also shows that philanthropy cannot be entirely explainedby the aim of checking the advance of socialism nor the desire for social acceptance.A concern for the sufferings of others was also clearly at work, not leastamong Jewish financiers who felt compassion for the poverty of their coreligionistswho had emigrated to Britain from the early 1880s. While the levelof philanthropic aid cannot be measuredquantitatively, the works of benefactors such as Baron and Baroness de Hirsch,the Bischoffsheims, and Ernest Cassel shed light on a major aspect of the socio-culturaldimension of private banking.More than any othergroup of private bankers, the merchant bankers of the City of London were ableto rely on the strength of their social assets. Unlike theircounterparts in other major European financial centres, they not onlysurvived as family firms well until the 1960s, but continued to form, bothsocially andprofessionally,a banking aristocracy in what remained one of the world’s twoleading financial centres. Looking at recent memoirs, David Kynastonsuggests, in the book’s final chapter, that their social profile, based onwealth, family inheritance and social connections persisted into the four tofive decades following the FirstWorld War. He also analyses the complex process of continuity and changein the leading merchant banks, as the City was gradually transformed by theadvent of the Euromarkets, its invasion by American banks, and ultimately the‘Big Bang’ of 1986. However, private banking had by then taken a new, differentmeaning, private wealth management – an activity requiring social assetsreminiscent of those of the private banker of old.

This is a full and authoritative account of the history of private banking, beginning with its development in conjunction with the world markets served by and centred on a few European cities, notably Amsterdam and London.

These banks were usually partnerships, a form of organization which persisted as the role of private banking changed in response to the political and economic transformations of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was in this period, and the succeeding Golden Age of private banking from 1815 to the 1870s, that many of the great names this book treats rose to fame: Baring, Rothschild, Mallet and Hottinger became synonymous with wealth and economic power, as German, French and the remarkably long-lasting Geneva banks flourished and expanded.

The last parts of this study detail the way in which private banking adapted to the age of the corporate economy from the 1870s to the 1930s, the decline during and after the Great Depression and the post-war renaissance. It concludes with an appraisal of the causes and consequences of the modern expansion of private banking: no longer the exclusive preserve of partnerships, the management of investment portfolios of wealthy individuals and institutions is now a major concern of international joint-stock banks.

Contents......Page 6 List of Figures......Page 8 List of Tables......Page 10 Notes on Contributors......Page 12 Introduction......Page 16 1 The Rise of the Rothschilds: the Family Firm as Multinational......Page 28 2 The Rothschild Archive......Page 58 3 Private Banks and the Onset of the Corporate Economy......Page 70 4 London’s First ‘Big Bang’? Institutional Change in the City, 1855–83......Page 88 5 Banking and Family Archives......Page 126 6 The Anglo-American Houses in the Nineteenth Century......Page 138 7 The Parisian ‘Haute Banque’ and the International Economy in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries......Page 154 8 Private Banks and International Finance in the Light of the Archives of Baring Brothers......Page 168 9 German Private Banks and German Industry, 1830–1938......Page 186 10 Private Bankers and Italian Industrialisation......Page 204 11 Private Banks and Industry in the Light of the Archives of Bank Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie., Cologne......Page 232 12 Jewish Private Banks......Page 240 13 Protestant Banking......Page 258 14 Private Bankers and Philanthropy: the City of London, 1880s–1920s......Page 274 15 Hereditary Calling, Inherited Refinement: the Private Bankers of the City of London, 1914–86......Page 290 Bibliography......Page 300 Index......Page 322 This is a full and authoritative account of the history of private banking, beginning with its development in conjunction with the world markets served by and centred on a few European cities, notably Amsterdam and London. These banks were usually partnerships, a form of organization which persisted as the role of private banking changed in response to the political and economic transformations of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was in this period, and the succeeding Golden Age of private banking from 1815 to the 1870s, that many of the great names this book treats rose to fame: Baring, Rothschild, Mallet and Hottinger became synonymous with wealth and economic power, as German, French and the remarkably long-lasting Geneva banks flourished and expanded. The last parts of this study detail the way in which private banking adapted to the age of the corporate economy from the 1870s to the 1930s, the decline during and after the Great Depression and the post-war renaissance. It concludes with an appraisal of the causes and consequences of the modern expansion of private banking: no longer the exclusive preserve of partnerships, the management of investment portfolios of wealthy individuals and institutions is now a major concern of international joint-stock banks. This is a full and authoritative account of the history of private banking, beginning with its development in conjunction with the world markets served by and centered on a few European cities, notably Amsterdam and London. These banks were usually partnerships, a form of organization which persisted as the role of private banking changed in response to the political and economic transformations of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was in this period, and the succeeding Golden Age of private banking from 1815 to the 1870s, that many of the great names this book treats rose to fame: Baring, Rothschild, Mallet and Hottinger became synonymous with wealth and economic power, as German, French and the remarkably long-lasting Geneva banks flourished and expanded. The last parts of this study detail the way in which private banking adapted to the age of the corporate economy from the 1870s to the 1930s, the decline during and after the Great Depression and the post-war renaissance. It concludes with an appraisal of the causes and consequences of the modern expansion of private banking: no longer the exclusive preserve of partnerships, the management of investment portfolios of wealthy individuals and institutions is now a major concern of international joint-stock banks