 | |
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Banking |
| Founded | 1873 |
| Founder | Robert Fleming |
| Defunct | 2000 |
| Fate | Acquired |
| Successor | Chase Manhattan Bank |
| Headquarters | London, England, UK |
Robert Fleming & Co. was an asset manager and merchant bank founded in Dundee, Scotland, in 1873. In 1909, the firm moved its headquarters to London, England. It was sold to Chase Manhattan Bank for over $7 billion in 2000. Flemings was a 50% partner in the Asian investment bank Jardine Fleming.
The firm of Robert Fleming & Co., known as Flemings, was founded in Dundee, Scotland in 1873 by Robert Fleming, a successful manufacturer of jute fabrics used for sandbags in the American Civil War. The firm was originally formed as a series of investment trusts, pooling money from Scottish investors into overseas ventures, and later moved into merchant banking. In 1909 the firm moved its headquarters to London. [1]
In 1873, Robert Fleming cofounded the Scottish American Investment Company for the purpose of investing in high risk, high return American railroad bonds. [2] Flemings assumed a central role in the 1886 battle with Jay Gould for control of the Texas & Pacific Railway, in which the Flemings bondholder group ultimately triumphed. Overall, Flemings claimed to have made a 40% return on investments in US railroads. [3]
In 1970, Flemings entered into an investment banking joint venture with Hong Kong-based Jardine Matheson, forming Jardine Fleming. [4]
Despite restructuring, Flemings saw its investment banking and asset management market share decline in the 1990s as global investment banks like Morgan Stanley and Lazard moved into their markets. [5]
The Fleming name was tarnished by a scandal in 1996, when Jardine Fleming was ordered to pay $19 million to fund investors for alleged abusive and unsupervised securities allocation practices by its asset management division. [6]
In April 2000, Robert Flemings Holdings was sold to Chase Manhattan Bank for $7.7 billion. [7] Although the sale came about as partially as a result of Flemings’ weakened position, it was part of two larger trends: consolidation in the financial services industry as large US commercial banks acquired investment banks upon the repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act, and the sale of UK merchant banks to foreign banks. Flemings, with almost no US assets, was considered a particularly good fit for increasingly globally minded Chase, whose assets lay largely in the United States. In the sale about 130 Fleming family members pocketed approximately $2.3 billion for their thirty per cent stake. When Chase merged with J.P. Morgan & Co. in 2001, the Flemings asset management business was rebranded J.P. Morgan Fleming, and Fleming Premier Banking was sold to Abbey National's Cater Allen subsidiary. [8] [9]
Members of the Fleming family set up an asset management company, Fleming Family & Partners, which in November 2014 merged with Stonehage Group, an international family office with its roots in South Africa, to create Stonehage Fleming Family and Partners. [10]
Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the firm's clients include corporations, governments, institutions, and individuals. Morgan Stanley ranked No. 61 in the 2023 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.
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J.P. Morgan & Co. is an American financial institution specialized in investment banking, asset management and private banking founded by financier J. P. Morgan in 1871. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, the company is now a subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase, one of the largest banking institutions in the world. The company has been historically referred to as the "House of Morgan" or simply Morgan. For 146 years, until 2000, J.P. Morgan specialized in commercial banking, before a merger with Chase Manhattan Bank led to the business line spinning off under the Chase brand.
Cazenove was a British stockbroker and investment bank, founded in 1823 by Philip Cazenove. It was one of the UK's last independent investment banks and one of the last to remain a private partnership. The investment banking business entered into a joint venture with JPMorgan Chase in 2004, and the fund management business Cazenove Capital Management spun off in 2005. In 2009, JPMorgan Chase acquired the remainder of the investment banking business. Cazenove Capital Management was acquired by Schroders in 2013.
Evercore Inc., formerly known as Evercore Partners, is a global independent investment banking advisory firm founded in 1995 by Roger Altman, David Offensend, and Austin Beutner. The firm has advised on over $4.7 trillion of merger, acquisition, and restructuring transactions since its founding. Evercore is widely considered one of the most prestigious and elite investment banking advisory firms.
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Irving Place Capital, formerly known as Bear Stearns Merchant Banking (BSMB), is an American private equity firm focused on leveraged buyout and growth capital investments in middle-market companies in the industrial, packaging, consumer and retail industries. Based in New York City, it has total committed capital across its funds of $5.9 billion.
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Adam Richard Fleming is a British businessman and was the deputy group chairman of the asset management company Stonehage Fleming before his retirement in 2019.
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Stonehage Fleming was formed in 2014, when Fleming Family & Partners, the family office run by family members of banking pioneer Robert Fleming, merged with Stonehage, an international family office.
