Industry | Banking |
---|---|
Founded | 1966 |
Founder | Edmond Safra |
Republic New York Corporation was the holding company for Republic National Bank of New York, Safra Republic Holdings, and Safra Republic Bank. [1]
The company was controlled by Jewish Lebanese billionaire Edmond Safra (1932-1999), who was killed in a fire in his Monte Carlo penthouse apartment, by his American nurse Ted Maher. [2] Republic New York Corporation was sold shortly after its chairman's death to HSBC Bank USA, the US subsidiary of HSBC of the UK.
Joseph Safra, the brother of Edmond Safra, controlled and owned independently the Safra Group of banks and financial institutions.
1966: Republic National Bank of New York is founded by Edmond Safra. [3] Safra had previously opened the Trade Development Bank in Geneva, Switzerland, which acquired a 36% stake in Republic. [4]
1973: Republic New York Corporation was established as a one-bank holding company for Republic National Bank.
1974: Acquires Kings Lafayette Bank, which has 18 branches.
1975: Acquires American Swiss Credit Company, Ltd., formerly part of Franklin National Bank.
1977: Opens Republic Factors Corporation.
1978: Opens Republic International Bank of New York in Miami, Florida.
1980: Republic is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Opens Republic International Bank of New York in Los Angeles, California.
1983: Edmond Safra sells Trade Development Bank to American Express. Several years later, American Express tries to smear Safra, after he attempts to open a competing business.
1987: Acquires the Williamsburgh Savings Bank.
1988: Edmond Safra organizes Safra Holdings S.A. in Geneva, Switzerland, which is 49% owned by Republic.
1990: Acquires Manhattan Savings Bank.
1992: Establishes Republic New York Securities Corporation.
1993: Acquires SafraCorp California and renames it Republic Bank California N.A. Acquires Bank Leumi of Canada. Acquires Mase Westpac Limited, which is a member of the London Gold Fixing. Acquires Citibank's World Banknote Services operations.
1995: Acquires Crossland Federal Savings Bank.
1999: HSBC acquires Republic New York for US$9.8-billion. [5] [6]
2001: Republic pleads guilty to fraud and agrees to restitution of $606 million in connection with cheating Japanese customers by its Republic New York Securities Corporation subsidiary. [7] Their partner at the time Martin Armstrong was convicted and spent 11 years in prison. [8]
2015: Safra Group purchased Chiquita Brands International [9]
Safra Republic Holdings issued $250 million of 1,000 year bonds in 1997, at a time when there were "a number of 100-year bond issues by corporations." [10]
Safra's banking interests catered to clients looking for tax havens in Switzerland, Luxembourg and Monaco. [11]
Republic National Bank of New York [12] operated without the "Of New York" part of its full name, [4] even though the name "Republic National Bank of" had at times been used elsewhere. [13] [14] [15]
From 1980 until Safra's death, Walter Weiner was Safra's attorney and CEO of Republic National Bank of New York and, in 1983, Wiener became chairman of the bank. [11]
In 1981, Republic National Bank of New York sought a tax abatement to construct its Fifth Avenue headquarters. The bank was the first midtown project to be turned down since the city's brush with bankruptcy in the mid-1970's. Kenneth Schuman, chairman of the city's Industrial and Commercial Incentive Board, said that the market had become strong enough so that construction would take place without the tax abatement. [16]
In 1998, Safra's Republic National Bank of New York was the preferred foreign bank through which most Russian banks had correspondent accounts. Both Russian banks, including SBS-Agro (Russian : СБС-Агро), Menatep (Russian : Менатеп), Inkom (Russian : Инком), and United Bank (Russian : Объединенный банк), and the Russian Ministry of Finance transferred IMF loan money to foreign locations through Safra's Republic National Bank of New York. [17] [18]
On 17 August 1998, the Republic National Bank of New York lost 45% of its net income due to its large holding of Russian bonds that became worthless after the 1998 Russian financial crisis. [11]
In 1999, Safra sold Safra Republic Holdings and Republic New York Corporation to HSBC for $10.3 billion in cash. [19] [20] The price was reduced to $9.85 billion, after the bank was convicted in a scheme to defraud Japanese investors, and fined over $600 million dollars, in connection with the disgraced market forecaster Martin A. Armstrong. [7]
On 31 December 1999, HSBC Private Bank became the new name for Safra's former holdings. [21]
When Republic was taken over by HSBC Bank USA, which already had acquired the former Marine Midland Bank, the combination retained what Republic had previously achieved: [5] "the third-biggest retail branch network in the New York region." [22] Two competitive parts of their operation were "low-cost checking and free automated teller machine services." [23]
HSBC Holdings plc is a British universal bank and financial services group headquartered in London, England, with historical and business links to East Asia and a multinational footprint. It is the largest Europe-based bank by total assets, ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.919 trillion as of December 2023.
Citizens Financial Group, Inc. is an American bank holding company, headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island. The company owns the bank Citizens Bank, N.A., which operates in the U.S. states of Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia, as well as Washington, DC.
Chiquita Brands International S.à.r.l., formerly known as United Fruit Co., is a Swiss-domiciled American producer and distributor of bananas and other produce. The company operates under subsidiary brand names, including the flagship Chiquita brand and Fresh Express salads. Chiquita is the leading distributor of bananas in the United States.
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Joseph Safra was a Swiss-based Lebanese Brazilian banker and billionaire businessman of Syrian descent. He was Brazil's richest man and the richest banker in the world, running the Brazilian banking and investment empire, Safra Group.
Marine Midland Bank was an American bank formerly headquartered in Buffalo, New York, with several hundred branches throughout the state of New York. In 1998, branches extended to Pennsylvania. It was acquired by HSBC in 1980 and changed its name to HSBC Bank USA in 1999. As a result of several transactions since the turn of the millennium, much of what was once Marine Midland is now part of KeyBank with the exception of Downstate New York and Pennsylvania, that is now part of Citizens Bank. Branches in Seattle are part of Cathay Bank.
Edmond J. Safra was a Lebanese-Brazilian billionaire banker and philanthropist of Syrian descent. He continued his family tradition of banking in Brazil and Switzerland, and was married to Lily Watkins from 1976 until his death. He died in a fire that attracted wide media interest, and was judicially determined to be due to arson.
Lily Safra was a Brazilian-Monegasque billionaire and socialite who amassed considerable wealth through her four marriages. She had a significant art collection and owned the historic Villa Leopolda on the French Riviera. Her net worth was estimated at $1.3 billion. She became strongly engaged with philanthropy when she married the banker Edmond Safra, and this continued through their foundation after his death in 1999.
HSBC Bank USA, National Association, an American subsidiary of the British banking group HSBC, is a bank with its operational head office in New York City and its nominal head office in Tysons, Virginia. HSBC Bank USA, N.A. is a national bank chartered under the National Bank Act, and thus is regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), a part of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The company has 22 branch locations.
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Safra National Bank of New York is an American privately held bank based in New York City, which provides services in investment banking, private banking, and asset management, to high-net-worth individuals, businesses, family offices and sophisticated investors in the U.S. and internationally.
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Theodore "Ted" Maher is a former Green Beret turned registered nurse who was convicted of arson in a 1999 fire that killed Edmond Safra and another nurse, Vivian Torrente, at Safra's Monaco penthouse apartment. In October 2007, Maher was released after serving eight years in jail.
The Metropolitan Savings Bank Building opened on May 30, 1867, at the northeast corner of Third Avenue and East 7th Street, in Manhattan, New York City. Its original address was 10 Cooper Institute. The building, which was designed by architect Carl Pfeiffer in Second Empire style, is four stories high, 45 feet (14 m) wide and 75 feet (23 m) deep, and was considered at the time it opened to be one of the most finely constructed edifices, "from garret to basement." Its facades were composed of white marble, with the upper floor being enclosed by a mansard roof. The building was fireproof, as no combustible materials were used during construction, either internally or externally. The entire cost of the structure was $150,000.
HSBC Guyerzeller Bank AG, a member of the HSBC Group, was a Swiss private bank advising individuals and families in all matters of wealth management, investment advice and trust services. Its head office was in Zürich, and it had two branches in Geneva, as well as representative offices in Hong Kong and Istanbul. It had 360 employees and about CHF 29 billion in assets under management. It is now subsumed under HSBC Private Bank.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)HSBC Holdings P.L.C. announced today that it would purchase the parent company of the Republic National Bank of New York for $10.3 billion