of Sutro & Co. indicated that we needed
the flexibility of the corporate structure.”
Sidney Schwartz became a special adviser
to the firm. Warren Berl was named presi-
dent and treasurer. When Hall died in
1971, Berl became chief executive officer, a
position he held until 1983.
The son of Edwin David Berl, Warren
Harry Berl was a San Francisco native
and a 1942 graduate of Stanford Univer-
sity. After serving in the US Navy during
World War II, he joined his father’s firm,
Edwin D. Berl & Sons (originally called
H. Berl & Son, founded in San Francisco,
1882). In 1957, Sutro & Co. merged with
Edwin D. Berl & Sons, and Warren Berl
joined Sutro & Co. Early in Berl’s tenure,
regional brokerages seemed to be surviv-
ing the bear market, as well as competition
from national firms. But after the NYSE
changed its competitive rate structure in
1975, Sutro & Co. felt the need “to diver-
sity its product line so less of its business
[was] dependent on commissions,” and
it expanded into municipal and corpo-
rate bonds, tax shelters, insurance and
estate planning. By 1977, the firm had
440 employees and about $8 million in
capital. Warren Berl’s family also started
a legacy of its own within the Sutro firm.
His brother, John D. Berl, joined Sutro &
Co. and became a senior vice president of
the Los Angeles office. His son, Douglas A.
Berl, joined the San Francisco office.
In 1983, Berl became chairman of the
executive committee and was succeeded
by Ross L. Cobb. A native of Vermont,
Cobb joined the firm in 1959 as a mail
clerk. The son of a carpenter, Cobb was
a graduate of the University of Vermont.
He moved to San Francisco after serv-
ing in the Air Force during the Korean
War. Cobb, who had been director of
operations since 1968, had been president
and chief operating officer since 1972. He
became chairman of the board and chief
executive officer in 1983.
John Hancock Mutual
Life Insurance Company (1986)
By the time Cobb became chief executive
officer, deregulation added another layer of
challenges for the firm. Starting in Decem-
ber 1982, deregulation of interest rates for
banks and savings institutions led to a drain
on capital from money market mutual
funds into new banking money-market
accounts from $195 billion to $37 billion.
According to The Palm Beach Post, “The
banks offered higher interest rates than the
money-market funds and, unlike the money
funds, the banks’ deposits are insured by the
federal government.” The Post reported that
“Funds that [operated] primarily in areas
where banks were especially aggressive have
been hit the hardest,” including Sutro’s
Money Market Fund which declined from
$208.4 million to $129.1 million. Warren
Berl was quoted as saying, “There’s no
doubt about it, the banks hurt us.”
In 1986, Sutro & Co. was bought by
the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance
Company. Based in Boston, John Hancock
was “one of the nation’s largest and old-
est insurance companies,” and like many
firms around this time, began to diversify
into financial services. John Hancock was
a big advocate of deregulation, which also
paved the way for these cross-industry
acquisitions. In the early 1970s, the NYSE
changed its rules allowing member firms
to sell insurance products, and in the
1980s, “the Federal Reserve loosened the
restrictions that prevented the merging
of insurance companies and banks with
investment firms.” After the sale, Cobb
retired from the firm.
Sutro & Co. remained a part of John
Hancock until 1996, when John Han-
cock decided to end its effort to diversify
and concentrate on its insurance business.
It sold Sutro & Co. along with Tucker
Anthony, Inc., another brokerage house
it bought in 1982, to “an investor group
led by corporate buyout specialist Thomas
H. Lee for about $180 million.” The new
holding company that merged the firms
was called Freedom Securities.
At the time, Sutro & Co. had “about
620 employees in 21 offices, most of which
are in California and the West,” while
Tucker Anthony had “1,300 employees
in 39 offices located largely in the East-
ern United States.” The logic behind the
merger was “to capitalize on each organi-
zation’s name recognition, historical areas
of expertise and close community ties
while lessening the [firm’s] reliance on
a single region’s economy,” and draw-
ing on “the experience and tenure of its
investment executives, which [had] often
led to long-term relationships with clients
in their respective communities,” among
other cultural characteristics like a focus
on personalized service.
Freedom Securities Corporation (1996)
Tucker Anthony Sutro Corporation
(2000)
Sutro & Co. and Tucker Anthony Inc.
went public in 1998—two years after the
firm was sold. Then in 2000, Freedom
Securities, the parent company, changed
its name to Tucker Anthony Sutro. The
following year, Tucker Anthony Sutro
was sold to the Royal Bank of Canada
(RBC), founded in 1901, which was then
“Canada’s largest commercial bank.” It
was combined with Dain Rauscher, a Min-
neapolis securities firm RBC bought in
2000. RBC’s purchase of Tucker Anthony
Sutro was part of its plan to expand in the
American market. By merging its sub-
sidiaries, RBC created “the ninth largest
full-service securities firm in the United
States.”
The new firm was called RBC Dain
Rauscher. With that change, both the
Tucker Anthony and Sutro names were
lost. According to Irving Weiser, the
chairman, president and chief executive
officer of Dain Rauscher, “The move to the
RBC name is part of a strategy to create a
national firm… Brand recognition across
the country is the No. 1 benefit.” Others
disagreed. Regarding the name change,
Richard Skaggs, the son of the founder of
the San Francisco firm Davis Skaags & Co.
said, “They should try to save the name
Sutro… The silly bastards. The whole state
of California knows the name.”
Susie J. Pak is an Associate Professor in
the Department of History at St. John’s
University (New York). A graduate of
Dartmouth College and Cornell Uni-
versity, she is the author of Gentlemen
Bankers: The World of J.P. Morgan
(Harvard University Press), a Trustee of
the Business History Conference, co-chair
of the Columbia University Economic
History Seminar and a member of the
editorial advisory board of the Business
History Review. She is also a member
of the Financial History editorial board.
About This Series The “Where Are They
Now?” Series traces the origins and histo-
ries of 207 of the underwriters of the 1956
Ford Motor Company IPO. The research
for this series has been generously funded
by Charles Royce of The Royce Funds.
www.MoAF.org | Fall 2018 | FINANCIAL HISTORY 29