Financial History Issue 130 (Summer 2019) | Page 37
members of Paine, Webber—to borrow
money from the firm to buy control of
two investment trusts, Insuranshares Cor-
poration of Delaware and Burco, Inc., and
then exchange the $6 million of securities
the trusts had for worthless securities.
Stephen Paine was suspended from the
NYSE and retired from Paine, Webber,
which paid over $1 million in settlement
from civil lawsuits. (Another partner,
Frank Hope, was also suspended). The
court determined that he had been aware
of the intentions of his associates and
was sentenced to two years in prison. He
was let out of prison in May 1940. Three
months later, in August 1940, his brother,
Francis W. Paine, who was still senior
partner of Paine, Webber, was killed in a
Boston subway accident when he fell into
the track in front of an oncoming train in
South Station.
Paine, Webber, Jackson & Curtis
(f. 1942, Boston)
In 1942, Paine, Webber merged with Jack-
son & Curtis, a Boston firm founded in
1879 by Charles C. Jackson, Laurence Cur-
tis and Frank Jackson. Laurence Curtis
was born in Boston in 1849. His father was
a veteran of the War of 1812 and a Bos-
ton merchant. An 1870 Harvard graduate,
Curtis worked for the Boston firm of Lee,
Higginson & Co. as a clerk. In 1874, he
became a member of the Boston Stock
Exchange and went into business for him-
self as a stock and note broker. In 1875, he
founded Jackson & Curtis with Charles
C. Jackson, a fellow member of the Lee,
Higginson firm. A bachelor, Curtis died in
1931, two weeks after the death of his twin
brother, Louis.
Charles Cabot Jackson was a Boston
native and an 1863 Harvard graduate. He
William Alfred Paine, founder of Paine & Webber.
was the son of Charles Jackson Jr. and
the former Susan Cabot. His grandfather,
Charles Jackson Sr., was an associate jus-
tice on the Massachusetts Supreme Judi-
cial Court. His father’s sister, Amelia Lee
Jackson, was married to Oliver Wendell
Holmes Sr., a doctor. Their son, Oliver
Wendell Holmes Jr., was appointed to the
Supreme Court in 1882. Charles Jackson
studied mercantile law and engaged in the
railway supply business in 1865. In 1868,
he founded the Boston firm of Richard-
son and Jackson, a wool brokerage firm,
with G.K. Richardson. In 1870, he joined
the firm of Lee, Higginson & Co. and left
in 1879 to enter into a partnership with
his brother, Frank Jackson, and Laurence
Curtis. In 1901, he transferred his NYSE
membership to his son, Charles Jackson.
In the post-war, the leadership of Paine,
Webber, Jackson & Curtis was domi-
nated by James W. Davant. Born in Mis-
sissippi in 1916, Davant was raised in
Memphis, TN. He studied at the Univer-
sity of Mississippi and the University of
Virginia. After serving in the Naval Air
Corps during World War II, he joined
Paine Webber, Jackson Curtis in 1945 as
a trainee. In 1956, he became the head of
the firm’s Minneapolis office, and in 1964,
he was named managing partner of the
firm. The firm had moved its head office
from Boston to New York City in 1963.
Under Davant’s tenure, the firm began to
acquire other firms, starting with Barret
Fitch North, a Kansas City, MO brokerage
house, in 1967. In 1970, the firm became
a corporation and bought Abbot, Proctor
& Paine, a Richmond, VA securities firm.
Two years later, in 1972, the firm went
public and bought Abacus Fund, Inc., an
investment firm. In 1973, it bought the
firms of F.S. Smithers & Co. and Mitchum,
Jones & Templeton. In 1974, it bought four
offices from the firm of duPont Walston,
which was being liquidated. In 1977, it
bought Mitchell Hutchins, a brokerage
house known for its research expertise.
As managing partner, Davant also
expanded the firm overseas and opened
offices in London and Tokyo in 1973.
During the 1970s, the firm also became
well known for its advertising slogan,
“Thank you, Paine Webber.” By the time
he retired, the firm had grown from 40
offices and a capital of $1 million in 1964
to 229 offices and a capital of $240 million.
Blyth Eastman Paine Webber (f. 1980)
In 1979, Paine Webber bought Blyth East-
man Dillon, the securities subsidiary of
INA Corporation, an insurance holding
company, and the subsidiary was renamed
Blyth Eastman Paine Webber. (Blyth East-
man Dillon was the result of INA’s merger
of two firms in 1972: Blyth & Co. and East-
man Dillon, Union Securities Co.) INA
Corporation received “20% of the shares
of Paine Webber” in exchange for its 67%
ownership in Blyth Eastman Dillon. After
selling Blyth Eastman Dillon, INA Corpo-
ration reinvested itself in its core business,
www.MoAF.org | Summer 2019 | FINANCIAL HISTORY 35