It was founded around 1590 by Hans and Paul Berenberg, refugees from Antwerp in the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium). Their descendants, the Berenberg and Gossler families, belonged to the ruling elite of Hanseatic merchants of the city-republic of Hamburg and several family members served in the city-state's government from 1735. Like many other merchant bankers, the Berenbergs were originally cloth merchants.[2][3][4] The company involved itself in shipping, whaling and ship insurance from the late 17th century, and in extensive trade with colonial goods imported from the Americas and Asia. By the early 19th century the company was one of Northern Europe's leading sugar merchants. During the 18th and 19th centuries the company gradually focused increasingly on financial services. The company's name refers to Johann Berenberg, his son-in-law Johann Hinrich Gossler and the latter's son-in-law L.E. Seyler, and has remained unchanged since 1791. The bank has operated continuously since 1590 and is still part-owned by members of the Berenberg-Gossler family.
Berenberg Bank is active in investment banking, particularly pan-European equity research, brokerage and equity capital markets transactions, in addition to private banking for wealthy customers, asset management and corporate banking. Since the 2000s, the company has increasingly focused on investment banking. Berenberg Bank has around 1,600 employees; in addition to its headquarters in Hamburg, it has significant presences in London, Frankfurt and New York City, and 14 further offices in Europe and the Americas. After years of expanding its activities in London, which is now home to its second largest office with a staff of around 500 and seat of most of its investment banking activities, Berenberg Bank has recently focused on expanding in the United States and Asia.[5]
The bank is organized as a limited partnership with personally liable partners, and is noted for its conservative business strategy. Following the 2008 financial crisis, the bank has expanded rapidly.[6] The former senior partner and head of the bank Hans-Walter Peters was also president of the Association of German Banks, having succeeded Deutsche Bank CEO Jürgen Fitschen in 2016 (until 2021). In 2018 Berenberg Bank, in line with its increasing focus on investment banking, sold its Swiss private banking subsidiary Berenberg Bank (Schweiz) AG to a group of investors; the Swiss company became known as Bergos.[7] Today the bank is run by three managing partners: Hendrik Riehmer, David Mortlock, Christian Kühn.
The Berenberg Company was founded in Hamburg in 1590 by the brothers Hans (1561–1626) and Paul Berenberg (1566–1645). In 1585, the Protestant Berenbergs left Antwerp in the Duchy of Brabant (today's Belgium), at the time one of Europe's commercial centres, as Protestants in the southern Low Countries were given the choice either to convert to Catholicism or leave the country. The bank has been continuously owned by their descendants ever since.
The Berenbergs were originally cloth merchants and quickly extended their business to other commodities. Hans Berenberg's grandson Cornelius Berenberg (1634–1711) was the first to engage in merchant banking and developed the company into a very successful merchant house and merchant bank. He forged trade links with France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Scandinavia and Russia. Family connections of the Berenbergs were instrumental to the development, especially in Livorno and Lisbon with their colonies of wealthy Dutch merchants. Members of the Berenberg family were also merchants in London from the 17th century.
Cornelius Berenberg's son, Rudolf Berenberg (1680–1746), was elected a senator, that is, a member of the government of the city-state, in 1735. By the mid 18th century, investment banking and acceptance credits comprised a significant part of the firm's activities. Rudolf Berenberg was married to Anna Elisabeth Amsinck (1690–1748), a daughter of the Lisbon and Hamburg merchant Paul Amsinck (1649–1706) and a descendant of the Welser family. Their sons, Senator Paul Berenberg (1716–1768) and Johann Berenberg (1718–1772), became owners of the Berenberg company.
In 1768 Senator Paul Berenberg died childless, while his brother Johann Berenberg lost his only son in the same year. To ensure the continuation of the firm, Johann Berenberg took on his son-in-law Johann Hinrich Gossler (1738–90) as a new partner in 1769; he had married Berenberg's only daughter Elisabeth Berenberg (1749–1822) the previous year. The Gossler family is known since the 17th century, when Johann Hinrich Gossler's great-grandfather was a Hamburg burgher.[8] Elisabeth Berenberg was the last member of the Hamburg Berenberg family, which became extinct in the male line upon her death in 1822. Johann Hinrich Gossler and Elisabeth Berenberg were the founders of the Berenberg-Gossler family, which rose to great prominence in Hamburg from the late 18th century. In the 19th-century city republic of Hamburg the (Berenberg-)Gossler family and the closely related Amsinck family were widely regarded as the city state's two most prominent families.[9]
In 1788 Johann Hinrich Gossler took on a new partner, his son-in-law L.E. Seyler (1758–1836), who had married his eldest child Anna Henriette Gossler (1771–1836). From 1790, the company was led by L.E. Seyler, and his mother-in-law Elisabeth Berenberg was a partner in her own right from 1790 to 1800. L.E. Seyler, a son of the famous theatre director Abel Seyler, was one of Hamburg's foremost merchants in his lifetime, and served as president of the Commerz-Deputation and as a member of the city's government during the French rule of the city. To reflect Seyler joining the company, its name was changed to Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. from 1 January 1791, and has remained unchanged since.
As head of the Berenberg company L.E. Seyler greatly increased the company's international trade, and was one of the first merchants and bankers from Germany who established trade relations with the newly independent United States and with East Asia. By 1800 the capital of the company had doubled since he became a partner. Seyler remained the company's senior partner for 46 years, and when he died in 1836 he had been with the company for 61 years. Seyler's seventeen years younger brother-in-law Johann Heinrich Gossler (1775–1842) joined the firm in 1798 and became a Hamburg senator in 1821. As of 1809 L.E. Seyler owned 5/12 (about 41%) of the Berenberg company and was the company's senior/managing partner and largest shareholder; his brother-in-law Johann Heinrich Gossler owned 4/12 (about 33%).[10] The two brothers-in-law jointly led the company for decades, with Seyler as the more experienced partner and Gossler gradually taking on more responsibilities as Seyler eventually retreated into semi-retirement in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars.
During the Napoleonic Wars the company lost half its capital, but it emerged stronger than ever and quickly regained and surpassed its former size once the war ended. Astrid Petersson highlights Joh. Berenberg, Goßler & Co. as "an example of a significant Hamburg trading house that achieved prosperity, among other things, due to its extensive sugar imports (...) their diverse sugar import business after 1814, especially with Brazil, the U.S., and East Asia, which in part continued their trade relations from the late 18th century, likely contributed significantly to the acquisition of their wealth. In conjunction with their position as merchant bankers, this firm acquired a prestigious standing beyond the borders of Germany, a status that few trading houses had around 1830."[11]
Anna Henriette Gossler and L.E. Seyler's children were briefly co-owners of Berenberg Bank; they have many prominent descendants in Hamburg and Norway, e.g. in the family Paus. Berenberg Bank was also involved in financing Norway's leading industrial enterprise, Blaafarveværket, whose CEO and co-owner Benjamin Wegner was Anna Henriette Gossler and L.E. Seyler's son-in-law.[12] Anna Henriette Gossler's younger brother Johann Heinrich Gossler (II)'s son Hermann Gossler (1802–1877) was a senator and First Mayor of Hamburg. The latter's younger brother Johann Heinrich Gossler (III) (1805–1879) became a partner in the bank and was the father of Baron Johann von Berenberg-Gossler (1839–1913), who also became a partner in the bank. In 1880 the Hamburg Senate granted the latter the name of Berenberg-Gossler, and in 1888, he was ennobled in the Kingdom of Prussia as von Berenberg-Gossler. In 1910 Johann von Berenberg-Gossler was given the title baron. Baron Johann von Berenberg-Gossler was the father of John von Berenberg-Gossler (1866–1943), a senator and German ambassador in Rome.[13][14]
In the 19th century, the bank financed the industrialisation process in Hamburg and transportation activities, and was strongly involved in the North American trade and its finance. The company was (together with the merchant house H.J. Merck & Co.) one of the main founders of Germany's largest shipping companies, the Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) in 1847 and Norddeutscher Lloyd in 1857. They were also one of the main founders of Vereinsbank Hamburg (now the HypoVereinsbank) (1857), the Ilseder Hütteironworks (1858), and the Norddeutsche Versicherungs AG (1857). The houses of Berenberg-Gossler, H.J. Merck and Salomon Heine were also the main founders of the Norddeutsche Bank in 1856, the first joint-stock bank in northern Germany and one of the predecessors of Deutsche Bank.[15] Furthermore, Berenberg Bank was among the founding shareholders of Bergens Privatbank (1855), the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (1865), Den Danske Landmandsbank (1871) and Svenska Handelsbanken (1871).[16] Berenberg Bank had a close cooperation with Barings Bank of London and was Baring's representative in Germany.
The Berenberg family and company had branches in Portugal, Italy and London from the 17th century. A branch of the Berenberg family also established the London firm Meyer & Berenberg in the 17th century and were among London's prominent West Indies merchants. In recent years Berenberg's London office in Threadneedle Street has grown rapidly to become Berenberg's second largest office, focusing on investment banking and private banking for the ultra wealthy.[17]
Logo
The company's logo is a stylized version of the combined coat of arms of the Berenberg and Gossler families, featuring the Berenberg bear (adopted in the 16th century in Belgium) and the Gossler goose foot (adopted in 1773 by Johann Hinrich Gossler).
A stylized version of the combined Berenberg–Gossler coat of arms used as the logo of Berenberg Bank.
A 1727 tombstone in London (St Andrew's) featuring the Berenberg family's arms (right); it belonged to Sarah Anna Berenberg, a descendant of Berenberg Bank's founders, and her husband. She belonged to a British branch of the Berenberg family.
Business segments
The bank is active in the following business segments:
Wealth management (typically, the minimum deposit required to open or maintain an account is €1 million)[18]
Berenberg Bank has its head office in Hamburg and significant presences in London, Frankfurt and New York City, as well as offices in Düsseldorf, Munich, Münster, Stuttgart, Brussels, Geneva, Paris, Boston, San Francisco and Chicago. In Zürich, the previous subsidiary Berenberg Bank (Schweiz) AG, has established itself as an independent Swiss Private Bank, Bergos AG, in September 2018. In 2017 Berenberg Capital Markets rented the entire 53rd floor of 1251 Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan.[19]
The Zürich office of Bergos AG, the former Berenberg Bank (Schweiz) AG
Philanthropy and donations
The Berenberg Bank Stiftung is a philanthropic foundation founded in 1990 on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the establishment of Berenberg Bank. The chairman of the board is Hans-Walter Peters. The foundation awards several prizes, including the Berenberg Culture Prize to younger artists and the Berenberg Scholarships to individual artists and groups. From 2009, the Universitäts-Gesellschaft Hamburg has awarded the Berenberg Prize for Scientific Language, that promotes German as a scientific language.[20]
Berenberg Bank is the largest Hamburg donor to the CDU.[21]
Ownership
Berenberg Bank is currently run by three personally liable partners, Hendrik Riehmer, David Mortlock and Christian Kühn.
Husband of Anna Henriette Gossler; son-in-law of Johann Hinrich Gossler and Elisabeth Berenberg. Johann Hinrich Gossler named him a partner when he married his daughter, in the same way he himself had become a partner. Seyler succeeded his father-in-law as head of the company in 1790. For many years Seyler owned 5/12 (about 41%) of the company and was the company's senior partner and largest owner. After his death, his children briefly were co-owners of the Berenberg company from 26 October to 31 December 1836[22]
Joined Berenberg as an accountant and later became a partner. He was married to Johann Hinrich Gossler's younger sister Margaretha Katharina Gossler (1749–1795) and was thus the brother-in-law of Johann Hinrich Gossler and Elisabeth Berenberg, but not on the Berenberg side of the family. As of 1809 Kruckenberg owned 3/12 of the Berenberg company and was one of three partners alongside L.E. Seyler and Johann Heinrich Gossler
He was born Joachim Consbruch in 1940 and assumed the name von Berenberg-Consbruch in Hamburg in 1976 after his stepfather Cornelius von Berenberg-Gossler. He is not himself descended from the Berenberg family.
The Hanseaten is a collective term for the hierarchy group consisting of elite individuals and families of prestigious rank who constituted the ruling class of the free imperial city of Hamburg, conjointly with the equal First Families of the free imperial cities of Bremen and Lübeck. The members of these First Families were the persons in possession of hereditary grand burghership of these cities, including the mayors, the senators, joint diplomats and the senior pastors. Hanseaten refers specifically to the ruling families of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen, but more broadly, this group is also referred to as patricians along with similar social groups elsewhere in continental Europe.
Jacob Benjamin Wegner was a Norwegian business magnate, estate owner and timber merchant.
Gerhard Carsten Jakob von Hosstrup was a Hamburg businessman and the founder of the Hamburg Stock Exchange building. He became Oberalter in 1843.
G. & J. E. Pinckernelle is a Hamburg insurance broker firm, established on 1 December 1857 by the brothers Gustav (1821–1875) and Johann Ernst Pinckernelle (1827–1906). The company however traces its roots to the ship broker company E. F. Pinckernelle, established by their father Ernst Friedrich Pinckernelle (1787–1868) in Hamburg in 1818.
Ludwig Erdwin Seyler was a Hamburg merchant, merchant banker and politician. He was by marriage a member of the Hanseatic Berenberg dynasty, and was a partner in the Hamburg firm Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. for 48 years (1788–1836), for 46 years as the company's senior partner. The company name was amended in 1791 to reflect him becoming a partner and has remained unchanged since; he "is practically the 'Co.' in the company name." Seyler was one of the first merchants and bankers from modern Germany to establish trade relations with the United States and East Asia. Much of the company's wealth derived from their position as leading sugar importers from the Americas to the North European market, in combination with their activities as merchants bankers. Seyler was one of Hamburg's leading merchants during the Napoleonic Wars and held several political offices. He served as a member of the French-appointed council of Hamburg and after the Napoleonic Wars as the President of the Commercial Deputation, one of the city-state's main political bodies. Ludwig Seyler was a son of the Swiss-born theatre director Abel Seyler and a son-in-law of the bankers Johann Hinrich Gossler and Elisabeth Berenberg through his marriage to their eldest daughter Anna Henriette Gossler.
Johann Hinrich Gossler was a German merchant and banker. He was married to Elisabeth Berenberg (1749–1822) and succeeded his father-in-law Johann Berenberg as head of the Berenberg & Gossler company, that was renamed Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. the year following his death. During Gossler's tenure as the company's main partner it became one of the largest merchant houses of Hamburg. Many of his descendants were prominent in Hamburg society, including his grandson, Hamburg's first mayor Hermann Gossler. Some of his descendants were later ennobled as the barons von Berenberg-Gossler. The Gossler Islands in Antarctica are named in honour of his family.
Hermann Gossler was a Hamburg lawyer, senator (1842–77) and First Mayor and President of the Senate of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg in 1874. He was Second Mayor in 1870, 1871 and 1873. During much of his tenure as senator and his first term as Second Mayor, Hamburg was a fully sovereign country, while after 1871, the First Mayor as head of state of republican Hamburg was equal to the federal princes (Bundesfürsten) within the German Empire. As a senator, he also served as Lord of Police (Polizeiherr), the equivalent of a Minister of Police.
The Berenberg family was a Flemish-origined Hanseatic family of merchants, bankers and senators in Hamburg, with branches in London, Livorno and other European cities. The family was descended from the brothers Hans and Paul Berenberg from Antwerp, who came as Protestant refugees to the city-republic of Hamburg following the Fall of Antwerp in 1585 and who established what is now Berenberg Bank in Hamburg in 1590. The Berenbergs were originally cloth merchants and became involved in merchant banking in the 17th century. Having existed continuously since 1590, Berenberg Bank is the world's oldest surviving merchant bank.
The Amsinck family is a Dutch-origined patrician family whose members were prominent merchants in multiple countries including the Netherlands, Hamburg, Portugal, England, France, Hanover, Holstein, Denmark, Suriname and India. From the 17th century the Hamburg branch of the family formed part of the city-state's ruling class, the Hanseaten or hereditary grand burghers, who enjoyed legal privileges in Hamburg until 1918. Amsinck has been one of Hamburg's great business families over many centuries, and its members reached the highest positions in Hamburg society, including as senators and head of state. A branch of the family were large plantation owners in Suriname. The Hamburg branch retained a Dutch identity for centuries, often intermarrying with other Dutch-origined patrician families.
Johann Heinrich Gossler was a Hamburg banker and grand burgher, a member of the Berenberg-Gossler-Seyler banking dynasty, a co-owner of the Berenberg Bank and a senator of Hamburg from 1821. He was the son of Johann Hinrich Gossler and Elisabeth Berenberg (1749–1822), and the brother in law of Ludwig Erdwin Seyler. He was the father of Hamburg First Mayor Hermann Gossler and the grandfather of Baron Johann von Berenberg-Gossler (1839–1913). He was also the great-grandfather of First Mayor Johann Heinrich Burchard.
Baron Johann von Berenberg-Gossler, known as "John", was a German banker from the city-state of Hamburg and owner and head of Berenberg Bank from 1879 until his death.
Johann Heinrich Burchard was a Hamburg lawyer and politician who served as senator and First Mayor and President of the Senate of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.
The Seyler family is a Swiss family, originally a patrician family from Liestal near Basel. Family members served as councillors and Schultheißen of Liestal from the 15th century, later also as members of the Grand Council of Basel. A Hamburg branch descended from the banker and renowned theatre director Abel Seyler became by marriage a part of the Berenberg banking dynasty, co-owners of Berenberg Bank and part of Hamburg's ruling class of Hanseaten.
Rudolf Berenberg was a Hamburg merchant and banker and a member of the Berenberg banking family. He served as President of the Commerz-Deputation from 1728–1729 and as a Hamburg Senator from 1735. He was the son of Cornelius Berenberg, and was married to Anna Elisabeth Amsinck (1690–1748), a daughter of Paul Amsinck (1649–1706) and Christina Adelheid Capelle (1663–1730).
Elisabeth Berenberg was a Hamburg heiress, merchant banker and a member of the Berenberg family. She was the last male line member of the Flemish-origined Hanseatic Berenberg banking family in Hamburg, and ancestral mother of the von Berenberg-Gossler family, the current owners of Berenberg Bank. She is also noted as the only woman ever to serve as a partner and take an active leadership role (1790–1800) at Berenberg Bank since the company was established in 1590 by her family.
Johann Berenberg was a German merchant and banker. He was a co-owner of Berenberg Bank from 1748, with his brother, senator Paul Berenberg, and after the latter's death in 1768 the sole owner. The bank still bears his name. He was also noted as an art collector and held several public offices in the city-state of Hamburg.
Wegner is a Norwegian family whose members have been noted as business magnates, estate owners, timber merchants and lawyers. The Norwegian family is descended from the industrialist Benjamin Wegner and his wife Henriette Wegner, a member of the Berenberg banking dynasty of Hamburg. Born in Königsberg, Benjamin Wegner worked as a businessman in London and Berlin before moving to Norway in 1822 to become managing director and a co-owner of Blaafarveværket, that became Norway's largest mining company and largest industrial company overall under his leadership. He thus was one of the most important early industrial pioneers in the newly independent Norway and one of Norway's leading industrialists from the early to mid-19th century. He also owned Frogner Manor and was a major co-owner of Hassel Iron Works, the Juel, Wegner & Co. timber company and the large Hafslund manor and estate that included around 340,000 decares of forest. He also served as consul-general of the city-states of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen.
Henriette Wegner, née Henriette Seyler, was a Norwegian businesswoman and philanthropist, a member of the Hanseatic Berenberg banking dynasty of Hamburg and the wife of the Norwegian industrialist Benjamin Wegner. She was briefly a co-owner of Berenberg Bank, and was also noted for her work for the homeless in Norway. During her life she was a citizen of the city-republic of Hamburg, of France during the Napoleonic Wars, and finally of Norway from 1824.
The Gossler family, including the Berenberg-Gossler branch, is a Hanseatic and partially noble banking family from Hamburg.
Anna Henriette Gossler was a Hamburg banker, heiress and socialite.
↑ Ingerid Hagen (2022). Blåfargen fra Modum: storhetstiden: Blaafarveværket 1822–1848 [The blue color from Modum: the time of greatness: Blaafarveværket 1822–1848]. Stiftelsen Modums Blaafarveværk. ISBN 9788290734584.
↑ Manfred Pohl, Sabine Freitag, Handbook on the History of European Banks, European Association for Banking History, 1994
↑ Michael North: "The Great German Banking Houses and International Merchants, Sixteenth to Nineteenth Century", in: Alice Teichova, Ginette Kurgan-Van Hentenryk and Dieter Ziegler (eds.), Banking, Trade and Industry: Europe, America and Asia from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century, Cambridge University Press, 2011, ISBN9780521188876, p. 46
Clarita Bernstorff, Hartwig Bernstorff, Emanuel Eckardt, Change is the only constant: Berenberg; a history of one of the world's oldest banks, Hanser Literaturverlage, 336 pages, ISBN978-1-56990-601-9
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