The establishment of the Bethmann bank in Frankfurt am Main is dated to 1748, the year when Johann Philipp Bethmann (1715-1793), who had inherited the trading enterprise of his uncle Jakob Adami in 1746, officially took his brother Simon Moritz as a partner. From that point the enterprise was called Gebrüder Bethmann.
Within a short span of time, the Bethmann bank developed into one of Frankfurt's leading (Christian-owned) banks, on a scale comparable only to its younger rival, the House of Rothschild. The bank's fortunes began to rise in 1754 based on its business in imperial, princely and municipal bonds and skyrocketed from 1778, thanks to the bank's innovation of breaking the Austrian emperor's borrowing down into "sub-bonds" (Partialobligationen) at 1000 gulden each offered to the public, which made them tradeable in secondary markets. This transformed the bank from a lender to an underwriter of bond issues. At one point, the profits of Gebrüder Bethmann exceeded those of all its Frankfurt competitors together, and it ranked first among all German banks.
Egon Caesar Conte Corti (1927) |
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Paul Johnson (1988) |
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Niall Ferguson (1999) | ||
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More than most German towns in the eighteenth century, Frankfurt was a businessman's town. At the junction of several major trade routes linking the towns of South Germany (Strasbourg, Ulm, Augsburg and Nuremberg) to the
Hanseatic ports of the North (Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck), and linking Germany as a whole to the economies of the Atlantic seaboard, the Baltic and the Near East, its prosperity was bound up with the
two annual fairs in the autumn and the spring which had been held in the town since the
Middle Ages. And because of the enormous variety of coinage circulating in Europe up until the late nineteenth century, the town's commerce necessarily went hand in hand with banking: in particular, money-changing and bill-broking (buying and selling the
IOUs generated by more complex transactions).
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Michael Jurk (2004) | |||||
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Besides an extensive business in imported goods, natural dyes and textiles, between 1754 and 1778 the brothers Bethmann mediated bond issues totaling 1.9 million guldens for their customers among the princes and electors of southern and central Germany. The Frankfurt Almanach of Trade assigned pride of place among banks to the Gebrüder Bethmann already in 1773. However, their breakthrough did not come until the year 1778. From then until 1793, they underwrote additional bond issues for the
Holy Roman Emperor totaling 17.2 million guldens, besides bonds underwritten on behalf of various princes and cities totaling 20.5 million guldens. The descendants of
Johann Philipp and
Simon Moritz managed to preserve their achievements:
|
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1853 | Founding of Frankfurter Bank, together with Joh. Goll & Söhne, Philipp Nikolaus Schmidt, D. & J. de Neufville, Philipp Donner, W. Gansland & Sohn, and B.H. Goldschmidt. |
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1887-1889 | Eiffel tower is built in Paris with financing provided by Bethmann bank [5]. (In a repeat of sorts, the Singapore Flyer would be built based on S$240 million financing provided by Delbrück Bethmann Maffei and one other German bank, and the bank also co-financed the Great Orlando Wheel project.) |
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Curabitur pretium tincidunt lacus. Nulla gravida orci a odio. Nullam varius, turpis et commodo pharetra, est eros bibendum elit, nec luctus magna felis sollicitudin mauris. Integer in mauris eu nibh euismod gravida. Duis ac tellus et risus vulputate vehicula. Donec lobortis risus a elit. Etiam tempor. Ut ullamcorper, ligula eu tempor congue, eros est euismod turpis, id tincidunt sapien risus a quam. Maecenas fermentum consequat mi. Donec fermentum. Pellentesque malesuada nulla a mi. Duis sapien sem, aliquet nec, commodo eget, consequat quis, neque. Aliquam faucibus, elit ut dictum aliquet, felis nisl adipiscing sapien, sed malesuada diam lacus eget erat. Cras mollis scelerisque nunc. Nullam arcu. Aliquam consequat. Curabitur augue lorem, dapibus quis, laoreet et, pretium ac, nisi. Aenean magna nisl, mollis quis, molestie eu, feugiat in, orci. In hac habitasse platea dictumst.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Curabitur pretium tincidunt lacus. Nulla gravida orci a odio. Nullam varius, turpis et commodo pharetra, est eros bibendum elit, nec luctus magna felis sollicitudin mauris. Integer in mauris eu nibh euismod gravida. Duis ac tellus et risus vulputate vehicula. Donec lobortis risus a elit. Etiam tempor. Ut ullamcorper, ligula eu tempor congue, eros est euismod turpis, id tincidunt sapien risus a quam. Maecenas fermentum consequat mi. Donec fermentum. Pellentesque malesuada nulla a mi. Duis sapien sem, aliquet nec, commodo eget, consequat quis, neque. Aliquam faucibus, elit ut dictum aliquet, felis nisl adipiscing sapien, sed malesuada diam lacus eget erat. Cras mollis scelerisque nunc. Nullam arcu. Aliquam consequat. Curabitur augue lorem, dapibus quis, laoreet et, pretium ac, nisi. Aenean magna nisl, mollis quis, molestie eu, feugiat in, orci. In hac habitasse platea dictumst.
The establishment of the Bethmann bank in Frankfurt am Main is dated to 1748, the year when Johann Philipp Bethmann (1715-1793), who had inherited the trading enterprise of his uncle Jakob Adami in 1746, officially took his brother Simon Moritz as a partner. From that point the enterprise was called Gebrüder Bethmann.
Within a short span of time, the Bethmann bank developed into one of Frankfurt's leading (Christian-owned) banks, on a scale comparable only to its younger rival, the House of Rothschild. The bank's fortunes began to rise in 1754 based on its business in imperial, princely and municipal bonds and skyrocketed from 1778, thanks to the bank's innovation of breaking the Austrian emperor's borrowing down into "sub-bonds" (Partialobligationen) at 1000 gulden each offered to the public, which made them tradeable in secondary markets. This transformed the bank from a lender to an underwriter of bond issues. At one point, the profits of Gebrüder Bethmann exceeded those of all its Frankfurt competitors together, and it ranked first among all German banks.
Egon Caesar Conte Corti (1927) |
|
---|
Paul Johnson (1988) |
|
---|
Niall Ferguson (1999) | ||
---|---|---|
More than most German towns in the eighteenth century, Frankfurt was a businessman's town. At the junction of several major trade routes linking the towns of South Germany (Strasbourg, Ulm, Augsburg and Nuremberg) to the
Hanseatic ports of the North (Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck), and linking Germany as a whole to the economies of the Atlantic seaboard, the Baltic and the Near East, its prosperity was bound up with the
two annual fairs in the autumn and the spring which had been held in the town since the
Middle Ages. And because of the enormous variety of coinage circulating in Europe up until the late nineteenth century, the town's commerce necessarily went hand in hand with banking: in particular, money-changing and bill-broking (buying and selling the
IOUs generated by more complex transactions).
|
Michael Jurk (2004) | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Besides an extensive business in imported goods, natural dyes and textiles, between 1754 and 1778 the brothers Bethmann mediated bond issues totaling 1.9 million guldens for their customers among the princes and electors of southern and central Germany. The Frankfurt Almanach of Trade assigned pride of place among banks to the Gebrüder Bethmann already in 1773. However, their breakthrough did not come until the year 1778. From then until 1793, they underwrote additional bond issues for the
Holy Roman Emperor totaling 17.2 million guldens, besides bonds underwritten on behalf of various princes and cities totaling 20.5 million guldens. The descendants of
Johann Philipp and
Simon Moritz managed to preserve their achievements:
|
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
1853 | Founding of Frankfurter Bank, together with Joh. Goll & Söhne, Philipp Nikolaus Schmidt, D. & J. de Neufville, Philipp Donner, W. Gansland & Sohn, and B.H. Goldschmidt. |
---|---|
1887-1889 | Eiffel tower is built in Paris with financing provided by Bethmann bank [5]. (In a repeat of sorts, the Singapore Flyer would be built based on S$240 million financing provided by Delbrück Bethmann Maffei and one other German bank, and the bank also co-financed the Great Orlando Wheel project.) |
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Curabitur pretium tincidunt lacus. Nulla gravida orci a odio. Nullam varius, turpis et commodo pharetra, est eros bibendum elit, nec luctus magna felis sollicitudin mauris. Integer in mauris eu nibh euismod gravida. Duis ac tellus et risus vulputate vehicula. Donec lobortis risus a elit. Etiam tempor. Ut ullamcorper, ligula eu tempor congue, eros est euismod turpis, id tincidunt sapien risus a quam. Maecenas fermentum consequat mi. Donec fermentum. Pellentesque malesuada nulla a mi. Duis sapien sem, aliquet nec, commodo eget, consequat quis, neque. Aliquam faucibus, elit ut dictum aliquet, felis nisl adipiscing sapien, sed malesuada diam lacus eget erat. Cras mollis scelerisque nunc. Nullam arcu. Aliquam consequat. Curabitur augue lorem, dapibus quis, laoreet et, pretium ac, nisi. Aenean magna nisl, mollis quis, molestie eu, feugiat in, orci. In hac habitasse platea dictumst.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Curabitur pretium tincidunt lacus. Nulla gravida orci a odio. Nullam varius, turpis et commodo pharetra, est eros bibendum elit, nec luctus magna felis sollicitudin mauris. Integer in mauris eu nibh euismod gravida. Duis ac tellus et risus vulputate vehicula. Donec lobortis risus a elit. Etiam tempor. Ut ullamcorper, ligula eu tempor congue, eros est euismod turpis, id tincidunt sapien risus a quam. Maecenas fermentum consequat mi. Donec fermentum. Pellentesque malesuada nulla a mi. Duis sapien sem, aliquet nec, commodo eget, consequat quis, neque. Aliquam faucibus, elit ut dictum aliquet, felis nisl adipiscing sapien, sed malesuada diam lacus eget erat. Cras mollis scelerisque nunc. Nullam arcu. Aliquam consequat. Curabitur augue lorem, dapibus quis, laoreet et, pretium ac, nisi. Aenean magna nisl, mollis quis, molestie eu, feugiat in, orci. In hac habitasse platea dictumst.