Financial History Issue 129 (Spring 2019) | Page 35
mining, railroad and automotive compa-
nies including the Ann Arbor Railroad,
Dome Mines and Chrysler.” Right before
the stock market crash of 1929, Jules Bache
had become more conservative with the
firm’s credit and had not invested the
firm’s own capital in the market. As a
result, Bache was able to weather the
storm. Jules S. Bache died in 1944 and
was succeeded by his nephew, Harold L.
Bache, Leopold’s son. The following year,
the firm’s leaders changed its name to
Bache & Co.
Bache & Co. (f. 1945, New York)
Born in New York City in 1894, Harold L.
Bache was educated at the Ethical Cultural
School, the Gunnery School and Cor-
nell University. He began working at J.S.
Bache & Co. in 1914 as a runner and joined
the firm after graduating from college.
He served in the infantry during World
War I, and then he returned to the firm.
He became a partner in 1926 and senior
partner in 1944.
The partners of the newly organized
Bache & Co. were Harold L. Bache; A.
Charles Schwartz, a protégé of Bernard
Baruch; James A. Fayne, a former mem-
ber of Hornblower & Weeks; Laurence
B. Rossbach, who was Jules S. Bache’s
nephew; and Sam H. Sampliner. New
partners included John J. Ryan Jr., James
C. Ryan, Frank T. Ryan and Joseph M.
Ryan, who were brothers and owners of
John J. Ryan & Sons, a cotton and rayon
textile dealer. The firm also had six limited
partners: Charles A. Blackwell, a former
member of Redmond & Co.; Adrian C.
“Ace” Israel, the head of A.C. Israel Com-
modity Co. in New Orleans founded by
his father; Russell E. Sard, a former mem-
ber of Redmond & Co.; Charles R. Blakely;
and Adolph Woolner. Partner Captain
Gerald Tsai, Jr. joined Bache & Co. in 1951
and was later the first Chinese-American
to lead a Dow Jones industrials company.
Clifford W. Michel retired and join Carl
M. Loeb Rhoades & Co.
By 1954, Bache & Co. was “one of the
largest brokerage firms in the country.”
It had “branch offices in 57 cities in the
United States” and “correspondents in
31 other cities and branches or corre-
spondents in Canada, England, France,
Germany, Japan, Mexico and Switzer-
land.” It had 1,400 employees and “mem-
berships on 24 securities and commodi-
ties exchanges.” That year, Harold Bache
stated that “only through the creation
of a large group of investors who will
provide private venture capital will the
nation be able to maintain and increase
the level of business activity and thereby
ensure uninterrupted employment and a
prosperous economy.” He said that the
financial industry had arrived at “the age
of the ‘little financier.’”
One financier who joined the firm in
the early 1950s was Gerald Tsai, Jr. A Chi-
nese American immigrant who made his
name in the 1960s as a mutual fund entre-
preneur, Tsai was born in 1929 in Shang-
hai and immigrated to the United States
at the age of 18. After graduating from
Boston University, Tsai joined Bache &
Co. in 1951 and then Fidelity Investments
in 1952. In 1965, he started his own mutual
fund, the Manhattan Fund, which he sold
in 1968 right before the market crashed.
In 1978, Tsai gained control of Associated
Madison companies, a life insurance firm.
In 1982, American Can bought the firm.
Under Tsai’s leadership, American Can
sold the part of the company that pro-
duced cans to Triangle Industries, then
led by Nelson Peltz, and changed its name
to Primerica in 1987. Tsai became chief
executive and “the first Chinese-American
to lead a Dow Jones industrials company.”
That year, Primerica bought the invest-
ment house Smith, Barney, Harris Upham
& Co. before being bought by Sandy Wei-
ll’s Commercial Credit Corp. in a $1.5 bil-
lion deal in 1988.
Bache & Co., Inc. (f. 1965, New York)
In 1965, Bache & Co. incorporated.
According to The New York Times, the
firm’s change from a partnership to a cor-
poration “[called] attention to a speed-up
in the trend toward incorporation by the
656 member firms of the Big Board… One
key advantage of corporate status is that
it fosters continuity of capital in a con-
cern. In a partnership, when an individual
partner dies or retires, his capital may be
withdrawn.” By that time, Bache had 103
domestic and international offices. It had
4,000 employees and was the third largest
brokerage firm in the United States. Har-
old L. Bache became chairman and chief
executive officer, A. Charles Schwartz
became vice chairman and George Weiss
became chairman of the executive com-
mittee. Adrian C. Israel became president.
(Israel resigned in 1966 and joined Haven-
field Corporation, a new firm, in 1967 as
chairman.)
Not long after the firm incorporated,
Harold L. Bache died in 1968. That year,
www.MoAF.org | Spring 2019 | FINANCIAL HISTORY 33