Investment banking pertains to certain activities of a financial services company or a corporate division that consist in advisory-based financial transactions on behalf of individuals, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated with corporate finance, such a bank might assist in raising financial capital by underwriting or acting as the client's agent in the issuance of debt or equity securities. An investment bank may also assist companies involved in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and provide ancillary services such as market making, trading of derivatives and equity securities, FICC services or research. Most investment banks maintain prime brokerage and asset management departments in conjunction with their investment research businesses. As an industry, it is broken up into the Bulge Bracket, Middle Market, and boutique market.
Swiss Bank Corporation was a Swiss investment bank and financial services company located in Switzerland. Prior to its merger, the bank was the third largest in Switzerland, with over CHF 300 billion of assets and CHF 11.7 billion of equity.
Salomon Brothers, Inc., was an American multinational bulge bracket investment bank headquartered in New York City. It was one of the five largest investment banking enterprises in the United States and the most profitable firm on Wall Street during the 1980s and 1990s. Its CEO and chairman at that time, John Gutfreund, was nicknamed "the King of Wall Street".
CIBC Capital Markets is the investment banking subsidiary of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. The firm operates as an investment bank both in Canadian and global equity and debt capital markets. The firm provides a variety of financial services including equity and debt capital market products, mergers and acquisitions, global markets, merchant banking, and other investment banking advisory services.
Dean Witter Reynolds was an American stock brokerage and securities firm catering to a variety of clients. Prior to the company's acquisition, it was among the largest firms in the securities industry with over 9,000 account executives and was among the largest members of the New York Stock Exchange. The company served over 3.2 million clients primarily in the U.S. Dean Witter provided debt and equity underwriting and brokerage as mutual funds and other saving and investment products for individual investors. The company's asset management arm, Dean Witter InterCapital, with total assets of $90.0 billion prior to the acquisition, was one of the largest asset management operations in the U.S.
A. G. Becker & Co. was an investment bank based in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
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.
PaineWebber & Co. was an American investment bank and stock brokerage firm that was acquired by the Swiss bank UBS in 2000. The company was founded in 1880 in Boston, Massachusetts, by William Alfred Paine and Wallace G. Webber. Operating with two employees, they leased premises at 48 Congress Street in May 1881. The company was renamed Paine, Webber & Co. when Charles Hamilton Paine became a partner. Members of the Boston Stock Exchange, in 1890 the company acquired a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. Wallace G. Webber retired after the business weathered a major financial crisis of 1893.
Bache & Company was a securities firm that provided stock brokerage and investment banking services. The firm, which was founded in 1879, was based in New York, New York.
Stone & Webster was an American engineering services company based in Stoughton, Massachusetts. It was founded as an electrical testing lab and consulting firm by electrical engineers Charles A. Stone and Edwin S. Webster in 1889. In the early 20th century, Stone & Webster was known for operating streetcar systems in many cities across the United States including Dallas, Houston and Seattle. The company grew to provide engineering, construction, environmental, and plant operation and maintenance services, and it has long been involved in power generation projects, starting with hydroelectric plants of the late 19th-century; and with most American nuclear power plants.
Orlando Joseph Jett is an American former securities trader, known for his role in the Kidder Peabody trading loss in 1994. At the time of the loss it was the largest trading fraud in history.
Michael W. Vranos is an American hedge fund manager and philanthropist who in the 1990s was referred to by some as the "most powerful man on Wall Street." In 1993, he reportedly earned $15 million from trading mortgage bonds. Fortune Magazine once called him "one of the best bond traders on Wall Street." According to a 2007 Wall Street Journal article, he has continued to be regarded as "the best-known mortgage-bond trader on Wall Street."
Blyth, Eastman Dillon & Co. was an American investment bank founded in 1914. Blyth Eastman operated for many years as one of the few major investment banking firms on the West Coast of the U.S. At the time of its acquisition, Blyth Eastman had more than 700 finance related employees with over 70 branch offices across the U.S. Blyth Eastman was among the top ten largest investment banks at the time of its acquisition.
Union Securities Corporation was an independent investment banking firm in existence from 1938 through its acquisition in 1956, although the name would survive through 1972. Union Securities was created in 1938 as a spinoff of the investment banking operations of J. & W. Seligman & Co. as a result of the Glass-Steagall Act.
The Predators' Ball: The Inside Story of Drexel Burnham and the Rise of the Junk Bond Raiders, by Wall Street Journal writer Connie Bruck, largely recounts the rise of Michael Milken, his firm Drexel Burnham Lambert, and the leveraged buyout boom they helped to fuel in the 1980s.
United States v. Morgan, 118 F. Supp. 621, more commonly referred to as the Investment Bankers Case was a multi-year antitrust case brought by the United States Justice Department against seventeen of the most prominent Wall Street investment banking firms, known as the Wall Street Seventeen.
Philadelphia financier Jay Cooke established the first modern American investment bank during the Civil War era. However, private banks had been providing investment banking functions since the beginning of the 19th century and many of these evolved into investment banks in the post-bellum era. However, the evolution of firms into investment banks did not follow a single trajectory. For example, some currency brokers such as Prime, Ward & King and John E. Thayer and Brother moved from foreign exchange operations to become private banks, taking on some investment bank functions. Other investment banks evolved from mercantile firms such as Thomas Biddle and Co. and Alexander Brothers.
Charles A. Stone and Edwin S. Webster first met in 1884 and became close friends while studying electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1890, only two years after graduating, they formed the Massachusetts Electrical Engineering Company. The name was changed to Stone & Webster in 1893. Their company was one of the earliest electrical engineering consulting firms in the United States.
Mismarking in securities valuation takes place when the value that is assigned to securities does not reflect what the securities are actually worth, due to intentional fraudulent mispricing. Mismarking misleads investors and fund executives about how much the securities in a securities portfolio managed by a trader are worth, and thus misrepresents performance. When a trader engages in mismarking, it allows him to obtain a higher bonus from the financial firm for which he works, where his bonus is calculated by the performance of the securities portfolio that he is managing.
