MMWarburg & CO

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  MMWarburg & CO (AG & Co.) Limited partnership based on shares
logo
Country GermanyGermany Germany
Seat Hamburg
legal form AG & Co. KGaA
Bank code 201 201 00
BIC WBWC DEHH XXX
founding 1798
Website mmwarburg.com
Business data 2019
Total assets € 6.3 billion (Warburg Group)

€ 4.5 billion (MMWarburg & CO)

Employee 929 (Warburg Group)
management
Corporate management

Joachim Olearius, Peter Rentrop-Schmid, Patrick Tessmann

The MM Warburg & CO (AG & Co.) limited by shares is one in 1798 in Hamburg by brothers Moses Marcus Warburg and Gerson Warburg of the banking dynasty Warburg founded an independent private bank. The MM Warburg & CO is now the largest privately owned bank in Germany.

The bank that was forcibly “ Aryanized ” during the Nazi era had to be renamed Brinckmann, Wirtz & Co. in 1941 on the instructions of the German Reich government . In 1969, under the management of Eric M. Warburg , the bank was renamed MMWarburg-Brinckmann, Wirtz & Co. and, almost a quarter of a century after the end of the Nazi era, it bore the name of the founding family again. After the reunification of Germany in 1991, the bank took on the original name MMWarburg & CO .

MMWarburg & CO is independent of institutional investors. Traditionally, wealthy private individuals form the customer base. The management of the bank is in the hands of the personally liable partners. More than 80% of the shares belong to the families of Max M. Warburg Jr. and Christian Olearius .

Around the private bank MMWarburg & CO , the Warburg Group with the financial holding company MMWarburg & CO Gruppe GmbH has arisen since the turn of the millennium . The Warburg Group is represented in 10 German cities. The group includes banks, capital investment companies and shipping companies. The Warburg Group's core business areas are asset management , private banking , real estate investment funds and investment banking . With total assets of 6.3 billion euros and managed customer assets of 69.8 billion euros, the Warburg Group is one of the largest private financial service providers in Germany (as of 2018) .

history

1798-1871

Headquarters of MM Warburg & CO at Ferdinandstrasse 75 in Hamburg

The bank was founded in 1798 by the brothers Moses Marcus Warburg and Gerson Warburg (1765-1825) from the money lending and pawn exchange business of their father Gumprich Marcus Samuel Warburg (1727-1801). Until 1853, the bank's headquarters were at Peterstrasse 227 in the middle-class Jewish quarter of Hamburg's Neustadt district. For the first few decades of the bank, there are only sparse references to the business activities. What is certain is that there were very early relationships with Mayer Amschel Rothschild and the Rothschild banks in London, Paris and Frankfurt am Main.

Known as a safe haven, Hamburg was a cheap banking and trading location. When the bank was founded, the Warburgs also benefited from the unrest in neighboring countries. During the French Revolution, nobles kept their money safe with the newly founded MMWarburg & CO . Between 1795 and 1800 England blocked the ports of France and Holland. Both republics had to conduct their trading business through neutral Hamburg. Amsterdam merchants sought refuge in Hamburg in order to bypass Napoleon's continental barrier. For the Hamburg wholesaler, the Warburgs financed the international and overseas business primarily with France, Spain, Portugal, Scandinavia, the United States of America and the West Indies. The city-state of Hamburg, in full bloom, had its own merchant fleet, its own military, and many foreign consulates. Europe's wealth flowed through the port of Hamburg: cargo of fish to Scandinavia, wool to Flanders, furs from Russia. The cosmopolitan maritime trading atmosphere closely linked Hamburg's bankers, business people and residents with London , Amsterdam and other cities abroad. The Portuguese Jews , who had been under special protection since 1612, were of enormous economic weight for Hamburg. Their trade with Spain, Portugal and their relations with Holland had contributed significantly to the growth and size of the Hamburg trade in goods and money. The German Jews were only legally equated with the Portuguese Jews in 1784.

On June 22, 1810 (according to the Jewish calendar : 20 Siwan 5570 after the creation of the world), a partnership agreement was drawn up for the first time for MMWarburg & CO . The document, written in Hebrew - Aramaic , was signed and certified by the responsible officials of the Jewish community. MMWarburg & CO founder Gerson Warburg died in 1825. Moses Marcus Warburg brought his nephew Abraham Samuel Warburg (1798–1856) to MMWarburg & CO as a new partner and shareholder . Abraham Samuel Warburg married Sara Warburg on February 11, 1829 , the daughter of his uncle and new business partner Moses Marcus Warburg. Relatives marriages, which were mostly carried out for economic reasons, were common in all classes and classes at that time.

On November 14, 1831, bank founder Moses Marcus Warburg died. Abraham Samuel Warburg took over the bank and chose his cousin Elias Warburg as a new partner, who left the bank for unknown reasons in 1837. Abraham Samuel Warburg died on July 8, 1856. As a long-time matriarch of the Warburg family, after the death of her husband, Sara Warburg ruled the business of MMWarburg & CO as sole owner from 1856 to 1864 . Sara's daughter Rosa (1833–1908) was married to Paul Schiff, the managing bank director of the Wiener Credit-Anstalt founded by Salomon Meyer Freiherr von Rothschild . These personal family ties helped Sara Warburg and the Warburg bank to cope with the major existential crisis for the Hamburg economy that was triggered by the Crimean War . At the end of the Crimean War, raw material prices plummeted and many American banks and railroad companies went bankrupt. The panic made waves as far as Hamburg and the local stock exchange. When banks and trading houses threatened to go bankrupt here too, the Hamburg Senate tried in vain to issue support bonds in Berlin, Paris and other financial centers. Then, in November 1857, Paul Schiff received an order from the Austrian finance minister to supply Hamburg with a corresponding loan. Austria and the Wiener Credit-Anstalt sent a train full of silver bars to the Hanseatic city on December 13, 1857, whereupon the uncertainty in the financial markets abruptly calmed down and the chaos ended. Bankhaus Warburg had gained considerable prestige through this relationship-based rescue operation. Hamburg recognized the great importance of the foreign contacts of the Warburgs, who from then on were more involved in the financial affairs of the city-state.

Moritz M. Warburg (1838-1910)

After overcoming the crisis, Sara Warburg transferred her strictly Jewish-Orthodox sons Siegmund Warburg (1835–1889) and Moritz M. Warburg (1838–1910) shares and management tasks at the family's own bank. In 1863 the company gave up its original title of money changer and henceforth changed the name to banking and money exchange business . The MM Warburg & CO was matured into a private bank with good international connections. Although the bank had only ten employees, it conducted foreign exchange and bills of exchange with large trading houses and banks around the world. In addition, the lucrative issuing business grew steadily. In 1864 Sara Warburg left the bank and finally transferred the business of the financial institution to the two unequal sons. The somewhat older Siegmund (partner from 1859 to 1889) had the undisputed supremacy in the bank, the influence of Moritz (partner from 1862 to 1910) was manageable.

Baron Horace de Günzburg (1833–1909)

Siegmund Warburg married Théophilie Rifka Tova Rosenberg (1840–1905) from Kiev on April 2, 1862 in Wiesbaden. Siegmund built a magnificent palace for his family on Alsterufer 18 and, by marrying his wife from Russia, turned the Warburg house into a small-scale multinational company. Théophilie's sister Anna was married to Baron Horace de Günzburg , a cosmopolitan Russian who owned banks in St. Petersburg and Paris, was a friend of the French emperor, and later acted as an advisor to Russian tsar Nicholas II . Another sister of Siegmund's wife Théophilie was married to the banker LE Aschkenasi, who worked in Odessa . Théophilie's third sister Rose married the court banker Baron Josef von Hirsch in Munich , which resulted in further personal relationships with the banking houses Bischoffsheim & Goldschmidt . On June 12, 1864 Moritz Warburg married the Frankfurt jeweler daughter Charlotte Esther Oppenheim (1842–1921). This resulted in relationships with the leading Frankfurt banks, in particular with the Moritz B. Goldschmidt bank. These marriages made a significant contribution to the expansion of MMWarburg & CO's business area .

Under Siegmund's management, the bank moved from Hermannstrasse 47 to its new headquarters at Ferdinandstrasse 75, a Florentine city palace near the Inner Alster in 1868 . City hall and stock exchange could now be reached on foot within a minute. The bank was therefore in the immediate vicinity of the offices of the major shipping companies and overseas traders. Whenever the opportunity arose, the bank bought the surrounding land until it had two complete street fronts in the area around the headquarters. In 1911 the old house at Ferdinandstrasse 75 was demolished and the MMWarburg & CO main building, which still exists today, was built.

In 1870 MMWarburg & CO helped found the Hamburg Commerz- und Disconto-Bank . The rise of the Warburg Bank coincided with the events that led to the merger of the small German states in 1871 into a unified German Empire . The Franco-German War (1870–1871) brought the German economy and MMWarburg & CO an unexpected boom. The money requirements of the new industrial companies emerging at this time were enormous and could no longer be covered by the private bankers. For this reason, the Warburg Bank took up securities trading and thus laid the foundation for the rise in the world of high finance . As a result, MMWarburg & CO, with the support of the Parisian Rothschild Fréres, participated in the second loan, with the help of which France was able to make the reparation payments of five billion francs to Germany agreed in the Peace of Frankfurt . For the bankers this meant a profit of gigantic proportions.

In addition to the Rothschilds, the most important partner banks at that time were the Stern Bros. in London with their branches in Frankfurt and Paris, the banking house Bischoffsheim & Goldschmidt in London, Paris and Brussels, the banking house S. Bleichröder in Berlin and L. Behrens & Söhne in Hamburg .

1871-1914

Max M. Warburg (1867-1946)
Paul M. Warburg (1868-1932)
Felix M. Warburg (1871-1937)
Jacob Schiff (1847-1920)
Otto H. Kahn (1867–1934)

In the midst of the imperial splendor, the marriage of Moritz Warburg and his wife Charlotte gave birth to the first offspring and established the family line of the so-called Mittelweg Warburgs , which was to become the dominant branch of the family at MMWarburg & CO over the next few years . Max Moritz Warburg (1867–1946), Paul Moritz Warburg (1868–1932), Felix Moritz Warburg (1871–1937) and Fritz Moritz Warburg (1879–1962) all became internationally important bankers and took on leading roles in Jewish cultural life.

With Max M. Warburg and his younger brother Paul, the bank got two new shareholders from the fourth generation of the family. The life and work of Max M. Warburg in particular had a lasting influence on the history of the bank. After an apprenticeship from 1887 with J. Dreyfus & Co. in Frankfurt, Wertheim & Gompertz in Amsterdam, Banque Impériale Ottomane in Paris and NM Rothschild & Sons in London, Max M. Warburg returned in 1891 to the Hamburg family business as an authorized signatory.

MMWarburg & CO made a profit by financing rail lines in the United States, which Kuhn, Loeb & Co. in New York brokered for you. Jacob Schiff , a native of Frankfurt and a partner in the bank, was an apprentice at MMWarburg & CO in 1871 . In addition, through the married-in Günzburgs participated in the sale of bonds of the Great Russian Railway Company and shares in the Bultfontein diamond mine in South Africa, and sold Russian, Norwegian, Chinese and Hamburg government bonds.

Kaiser Wilhelm II declared that Germany's future lay on the water. As a result, a powerful navy began to be built up alongside an expanding merchant fleet . This shifted the emphasis of the military to the navy , which the Prussians had always placed on the infantry . The seafaring business meant a further upswing for Hamburg and MMWarburg & CO . Hamburg also built a new free port . Construction of the Speicherstadt began in 1883 . A complex network of bridges, canals and reservoirs emerged. This largest warehouse complex in the world was considered a marvel of modern engineering. Every building had access to the water. Bales of spices, coffee, tea or oriental carpets could be threaded directly into the open storage floors. However, with the international boom in Hamburg, cholera also came to Hamburg. In the middle of a hot summer on August 14, 1892, a sick Hamburg sewer worker with severe vomiting and diarrhea was admitted to a hospital and died. By the end of October 8605 more people, including his wife and child of the manager of died MM Warburg & Co .

On July 1, 1893 Max M. Warburg partner is MM Warburg & Co . At this time, Max M. Warburg developed a close business and personal relationship with his related Hamburg shipowner Albert Ballin and his world's largest commercial and passenger shipping fleet HAPAG . Albert Ballin was a member of the Warburg family, as his grandmother Esther Thamar Levy (d. 1772) was a daughter of Samuel Moses Warburg (1690-1759). While MMWarburg & Co Ballins financed HAPAG from 1901 as part of a banking consortium and Max M. Warburg rose to the supervisory board of HAPAG, Ballin became the godfather of Max. M. Warburg's son Erich Hermann M. Warburg (1900–1990). On Ballin's initiative, Max M. Warburg also became a member of the supervisory board of the Hamburg-based shipyard Blohm & Voss , making him a key player in the German shipping industry. In addition, Warburg and Ballin combined their activities as advisers to the German Emperor Wilhelm II. In the Wilhelmine era, the bank turned increasingly to national and international issuing business and entered the international political and financial world under the new senior boss Max M. Warburg.

On weeks of travels through the USA, Russia, South Africa, Italy and Scandinavia, Warburg managed the external transactions of MM Warburg & CO and developed the bank into a financial institution with a global reputation. From 1895 onwards, international relations received an impetus that had not been thought possible by the marriage of Felix M. Warburg and Paul M. Warburg into the families of the leading Wall Street bank Kuhn, Loeb & Co. through Felix M. Warburg's weddings with Frieda Schiff and Paul M. Warburg with Nina Loeb , the brothers became junior partners at Kuhn, Loeb & Co. The unequal brothers emigrated to the USA, remained partners at MMWarburg & Co and from then on worked side by side with the powerful Kuhn, Loeb & Co . -Senior partners Jacob Schiff and Otto Hermann Kahn . The resulting family ties promised an intensive business relationship of the utmost importance between Hamburg-based MMWarburg & Co and New York's Kuhn, Loeb & Co. and further involved the Hamburg bank in transatlantic world politics. They brokered four percent German Treasury notes for eighty million Reichsmarks for Kuhn, Loeb & Co. and the National City Bank, and through the Warburgs Kuhn, Loeb & Co. bought HAPAG shares for several million dollars. Under the leadership of Max M. Warburg and his brother Paul M. Warburg, the bank had quintupled its balance sheet total and doubled the number of employees to mark its centenary in 1898. The business successes caused quite a stir.

Jacob Schiff , embittered by the pogroms against Russian Jews , saw it as a point of honor to support Japan financially in the war against Tsarist Russia in 1904/05. Since the American market was already exhausted by two Japanese bonds, Schiff turned to Max M. Warburg to place the third Imperial Japanese Government bond on the German financial market. In 1905, Max M. Warburg met in coordination with the German diplomat Arthur Zimmermann on the yacht of the Japanese emperor in order to negotiate with his finance delegate Takahashi Korekiyo about the conditions for a Japanese loan on the German market. The loan was also in the interests of the German armaments industry around Friedrich Krupp AG , which promised to receive additional orders from the Japanese military through the loan. The bond was eventually placed and oversubscribed ten times. Accordingly, Japan entered the Portsmouth Peace Conference strengthened .

The success of MMWarburg & Co was closely linked to Max M. Warburg's patriotic ties to the German government. As a liberal imperialist, Warburg supported the colonial ventures of the German Empire and helped found the Hamburg Colonial Institute . In 1904 MMWarburg & Co participated in a loan from Deutsche Bank for the Ottoman Empire to finance the Baghdad Railway . In 1905, Max M. Warburg allowed himself to be seduced by the Foreign Office into participating in an intrigue in Liberia that ended with most of the Liberian trade falling into German hands. In 1905 the bank received its final accolade and was admitted to the prestigious and profitable Reich bond consortium , the narrowest circle of around fifty representatives of German high finance.

MMWarburg & Co is involved in the financing of all modern transport infrastructure structures in Hamburg: in 1906 at Hamburg Central Station, in 1907 in the construction of the Elbe Tunnel , in 1908 in the construction of Mönckebergstrasse with the new subway and the St. Pauli Landungsbrücken inaugurated in 1909 . Max M. Warburg was considered a "big linker", one of the very big ones in the intertwined personal network of business and politics. Warburg had direct links with foreign governments.

In June 1914 Warburg founded the Anglo-German Bank with the Gießen politician and later initiator of the Balfour Declaration, Lord Milner, for investments in Morocco - with the consent of the German and British governments.

With its commitment to the colonies, the MMWarburg & Co bank managed to jump into the forefront of the world's leading banks. The bank competed with Deutsche Bank, which also operates worldwide, for first place in the issue of securities. The balance sheet total tripled from 47 million marks in 1900 to 127 million marks in 1914. The shareholders of the Warburg Bank Max M. Warburg, Fritz M. Warburg, Aby S. Warburg and Paul M. Warburg sat on 19 supervisory boards. Despite wars, chaos and galloping inflation , MMWarburg & Co was at an all-time high shortly before the outbreak of the First World War.

After emigrating to the USA in 1902, Paul M. Warburg struggled with the currency system there, which he perceived to be backward. From 1902 he pursued the controversial establishment of a US central bank ( FED ) based on the model of the Reichsbank . On December 23, 1913, Paul M. Warburg had achieved his goal and was appointed Vice Chairman of the newly created US Federal Reserve by US President Woodrow Wilson . On August 10, 1914, Paul M. Warburg took his oath of office and served on the US Federal Reserve Board.

1914-1918

Paul M. Warburg at a financial conference in Washington (1915)
Carl Melchior in the German delegation to negotiate the Versailles Treaty , first from right (1919)

On July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on the Kingdom of Serbia . The resulting First World War tied MMWarburg & Co and Max M. Warburg even closer to the government of the German Empire . The bank's work now revolved around war bonds . As a result of the war, MMWarburg & Co had more to do with state-owned companies than with private companies. At the beginning of the war, Max M. Warburg turned down the offer to go to Washington as German ambassador . The food shortage prompted the government to import food from abroad. Max M. Warburg was elected to the Advisory Board of the War Food Office in 1915 . In cooperation with the shipowner Albert Ballin, MMWarburg & Co organized the imports, made foreign currency available and made advance payments. For their relief efforts, the Bank, Warburg and Ballin received severe hostility from American Zionists such as Louis Brandeis , who had no understanding of the continued German patriotism of Jewish businessmen.

The entry into the war of the United States on April 6, 1917 was a family and business catastrophe for the Warburgs living in Germany and the United States. Felix M. Warburg , who lives in the USA, had to give up his partnership with MMWarburg & Co , which he had taken over from his brother Paul M. Warburg in 1914 when he was appointed to the position of Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve . For the first time in the 120-year history of MMWarburg & Co , a shareholder , Carl Melchior , who was highly valued within the company, was added in 1917 who did not belong to the Warburg family.

The end of the war and the emergence of revolutionary forces also marked a significant cut in the longstanding relationship between MMWarburg & Co and HAPAG. HAPAG founder Albert Ballin died on November 9, 1918, the last day of the German Empire, after revolutionaries had broken into the HAPAG meeting room the day before and threatened Ballin. Almost all historians assume suicide.

1918-1933

After the end of the First World War , Max M. Warburg was appointed on March 12, 1919 by Reich Minister Count Rantzau as one of the six main delegates for the negotiations on the Peace Treaty of Versailles . Max M. Warburg refused and instead took part in the negotiations as an expert. On Warburg's recommendation, Carl Melchior , a partner in MMWarburg & CO since 1917, became one of the main delegates of the peace negotiations. Warburg and Melchior, however, left their delegations because they regarded the reparations obligations to the Entente as unacceptable. Like the other delegation participants, they recommended that the Reich government not sign the Versailles Treaty .

In the 1920s, Melchior was repeatedly commissioned by the state to represent German interests at international conferences with the aim of relieving Germany of the reparations payments of the Versailles Treaty. As an advisor to the German delegation, he took part in the Reparations Conferences in Brussels (1920), Paris (1921), London (1921) and Genoa (1922).

The hyperinflation of 1922/1923 , along with the occupation of the Ruhr and a civil war-like state of the Weimar Republic, led to a tireless surge of anti-Semitism . Both in Germany and in the USA, Max M. Warburg, MMWarburg & CO as well as Paul M. Warburg and the US Central Bank were the focus of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories . Since members of the Warburg family were also nationals of different countries, the Warburgs were suitable for the embodiment of the " International Jew " who, with other Jewish co-conspirators, strived for world domination. The Warburgs were seen as the masterminds on Wall Street and at the same time as the secret servants of Russian revolutionaries like Leon Trotsky . In the summer of 1922, the shareholders of MMWarburg & CO had switched to driving to work in armored cars with barred windows and accompanied by police escorts for fear of attacks.

In 1924, the German currency was more or less stable again, MMWarburg & CO employed 358 people in Hamburg's Ferdinandstrasse. The Dawes plan of August 1924 had far-reaching consequences for the bank. With Germany now the largest debtor and America the largest creditor in the 1920s, MMWarburg & CO once again played a key role in transatlantic finance. Paul M. Warburg had meanwhile founded the International Acceptance Bank (IAB) in New York and, in cooperation with MMWarburg & CO, provided German industry with loans. Foreign money also flowed into Hamburg government bonds with the u. a. the reconstruction of the German merchant fleet and HAPAG were financed.

The German industry, which was now pumped to the brim with foreign money, experienced a wave of concentration that created colossal corporations and cartels. In 1926 Daimler and Benz merged to form Daimler-Benz AG . The year before that made Bayer AG , BASF , Agfa and five other chemical companies with the IG Farben the largest group in the country, the vast quantities of drugs, nitrogen, magnesium, films and colors produced. When Max M. Warburg was appointed to the IG Farben supervisory board in 1928, it was his 27th supervisory board mandate, which he held at the same time. All shareholders of MMWarburg & CO together held a total of 87 supervisory board mandates in 1928.

In 1925 Carl Melchior was the only German member to be appointed to the Finance Committee of the League of Nations , which further increased the reputation of MMWarburg & CO . MMWarburg & CO had developed into one of the largest and most renowned private banks in the world. In 1929 Ernst Spiegelberg from the Spiegelberg banking family and Max M. Warburg's son Erich M. Warburg became partners in MMWarburg & CO . In 1930, Max M. Warburg's nephew Siegmund G. Warburg followed . This initiated the handover of the bank to the fifth generation of the Warburgs.

In order to have a new base in Europe for the American bond business, the Hamburg-based MMWarburg & CO and the New York banking houses International Acceptance Bank and Bank of Manhattan Co., created by Paul M. Warburg, founded Warburg & Co. a few weeks before the stock market crash in 1929 . -Bank in Amsterdam . Paul M. Warburg was also Chairman of the Board of Directors of the International Acceptance Bank and the Bank of Manhattan Co. , the predecessor bank of Chase Manhattan . The Warburgs were now represented in international emissions and securities trading through the Amsterdam agency . The managing directors of the Amsterdam branch were Erich M. Warburg, Ernst Spiegelberg and Leonard Keesing, the long-time authorized signatory of Kuhn, Loeb & Co.Max M. Warburg (chairman), Paul M. Warburg (deputy chairman) and Fritz M. Warburg.

Despite the tense economic situation, the bank managed to increase its balance sheet by Black Thursday on October 24, 1929. But the global economic crisis that set in, political turmoil, the extensive liquidation of German securities by Americans, the fall in German shares and the flight of capital after the NSDAP's election success in 1930 also put MMWarburg & CO in distress. The insolvency of Rothschild’s Wiener Creditanstalt in May 1931 also caused another banking crisis that spread to all of Central Europe. With the collapse of the Darmstädter und Nationalbank , headed by Jakob Goldschmidt , in July 1931, a German banking crisis finally began and worsened the already tense situation for many other banks. The American Warburg brothers Felix M. Warburg and Paul M. Warburg had to support MMWarburg & CO with immense credits and loans amounting to 9.1 million US dollars (inflation-adjusted 2018: approx. 140 million US dollars). Despite the crisis, the close business relationships with Kuhn, Loeb & Co. and the Rothschild banks remained of paramount importance for MMWarburg & CO .

In 1933 MMWarburg & CO, with a capital of 18 million Reichsmarks, was the most important and largest private bank in Germany even before Mendelssohn & Co.

1933-1945

With the beginning of the Nazi seizure of power and the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Reich Chancellor on January 30, 1933, MMWarburg & CO, together with the Berlin banking house AE Wassermann and the Anglo-Palestine Bank founded by Theodor Herzl , developed the Palestinian Trust Agency for Advising German Jews GmbH (Paltreu ). Three quarters of all financial transfers required for the emigration of German Jews and the export of German goods to Palestine under the Ha'avara Agreement were processed through the trust company, which was established in 1934 as part of the Ha'avara Agreement . Up to the outbreak of the Second World War, 140 million Reichsmarks flowed through the bank and ensured that MMWarburg & CO received enough orders during this difficult time. Another task of the society was to advise those German Jews who emigrate to Palestine and wanted to bring part of their property with them. The Paltreu was under the supervision of the Foreign Office , the Reich Ministry of Economics and the Reichsbank .

When Hitler came to power, the MMWarburg & CO shareholders held 108 supervisory board mandates. The beginning of the Nazi era brought serious changes for MMWarburg & CO despite its industrial influence. The flow of mail dried up, fewer and fewer customers found their way to the bank. Within 1933 the number of customers decreased from 5241 to 1875 and the bank was expelled from numerous securities mergers. However, it was not only the National Socialists who contributed to the temporary decline of the bank . Due to the deferral of the loans granted to Germany, international cash flows were frozen. In addition, the bank was still suffering from the 1931 debacle.

On the same day, on December 30, 1933, the two MMWarburg & CO partners Carl Melchior and Aby S. Warburg died. In January 1934, MMWarburg & CO partner Siegmund G. Warburg emigrated to London and opened the SG Warburg & Co. banking house there . In the summer of 1938 Erich M. Warburg emigrated to New York and founded the investment bank in the offices of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. EM Warburg & Co.

Johann JP Wirtz (1881-1946)

Between 1936 and 1938 the remaining shareholders of MMWarburg & CO lost 80 of 98 supervisory board mandates . Macabre main activity in 1937 was taking over the customers of already Aryanised Jewish banks such as the bank S. Bleichröder , J. Dreyfus & Co. and 200 other private banks. MMWarburg & CO was one of the last trust banks for the Jewish business world.

In September 1937, during a conversation in Berlin , Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schacht informed Max M. Warburg that he would no longer be able to hold the bank in the Reich bond consortium . Then Max M. Warburg decided to convert the bank into a limited partnership (KG) with the help of friends like Franz Schütte and Consul Dubbers in Bremen and members of the Nottebohm and Laeisz families in Hamburg. Rudolf Brinckmann , loyal general representative of MMWarburg & CO for many years, and business friend Johann Jacob Paul Wirtz from Hamburg took over the bank in 1938. At the end of May 1938, Max M. Warburg said goodbye to his employees with a moving speech and emigrated to the USA in August 1938. The silent participation that the Warburg family still held in the bank was confiscated when the war broke out in 1939. On October 27, 1941, the bank had to change its name to Brinckmann, Wirtz & Co. by order of the government of the German Reich . The deposits of the silent partners from the Warburg family were confiscated. Rudolf Brinckmann and Johann Paul Wirtz steered the bank through the dark years of the war, not without danger to themselves.

1945-2019

A few days after the German surrender in 1945, Erich M. Warburg returned on May 11, 1945 as Lt. Col. Eric M. Warburg , Chief Intelligence Officer of the US Army Air Force and meanwhile an American citizen , returned to the British-occupied Hamburg. After the end of the Second World War , the shareholders of MMWarburg & CO received their frozen assets back. Company patriarch Max. M. Warburg, who emigrated into American exile in 1938, died on December 26, 1946 in New York.

In 1949, the Warburg family, represented by Eric M. Warburg, became shareholders of the bank again through the conclusion of a refund settlement. Starting in 1956, he became a general partner at Brinckmann, Wirtz & Co. a. At the beginning of 1957 Friedrich Priess joined Eric M. Warburg and Rudolf Brinckmann as the third personally liable general partner in the bank. In 1969 the bank, which had meanwhile grown rapidly, was renamed MMWarburg-Brinckmann, Wirtz & Co. and for the first time since the Second World War it bore the name of the Warburgs again.

Max Marcus Alfons Warburg ( short : Max M. Warburg Jr .; born March 1948 in New York), son of Eric M. Warburg, initially completed internships at Chase Manhattan in New York, EM Warburg & Pincus in New York, SG Warburg & Co. in London and Effectenbank Warburg AG in Frankfurt. Subsequently, Max M. Warburg Jr. joined MMWarburg & CO in 1978 as Director Sales & Trading and finally in 1982 as a partner and thus in the 6th generation of the Warburg family . The families of the main shareholders Max M. Warburg Jr. and Christian Olearius hold more than 80% of the shares in MMWarburg & CO (as of March 2018).

After the reunification of Germany, the bank returned to its original name MMWarburg & CO on October 1, 1991 .

At the turn of the millennium, under the management of Christian Olearius, MMWarburg & CO grew rapidly through the takeover of numerous German private banks. In 1997 the largest private bank in Lower Saxony, Hallbaum, from Hanover, and in 1998 the traditional Hamburg private bank Marcard, Stein & Co, were acquired. This was followed in 1999 by the takeover of the oldest private bank in Bremen, Carl F. Plump & CO, and in 2003 by the acquisition of the Berlin private bank Löbbecke . In addition, the foreign subsidiaries MMWarburg Bank AG (Switzerland) and MMWarburg & CO Luxembourg SA , as well as several capital investment companies were founded . From 2009 the Schwäbische Bank AG , based in Stuttgart, belonged to the Warburg banking group. The subsidiaries that were initially taken over, Bankhaus Hallbaum , Bankhaus Löbbecke , Bankhaus Carl F. Plump & CO and Schwäbische Bank , were merged with the parent company MMWarburg & CO in 2016 and have since been operating as branches of MMWarburg & CO .

On January 20, 2016, tax investigators searched the premises of the bank. In March 2018, the bank and private real estate owned by the Olearius family were searched again. The Warburg Bank rejects all allegations.

In spring 2018, Warburg Bank acquired 75.1 percent of the shares in NORD / LB Asset Management AG from Hanover from NORD / LB Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale. From now on, both banks bundled their asset management activities in Warburg Invest Holding GmbH. In June 2019 Warburg took over the remaining shares in the holding company and has been the sole owner of the former NORD / LB Asset Management AG since then. This now operates as Warburg Invest AG. With assets under management and administration of more than 36 billion euros and around 130 employees, the holding is a major asset manager in northern Germany.

In November 2019, the chairman of the supervisory board, Christian Olearius, and his deputy, Max Warburg, both of the bank's main shareholders, announced their resignation at the end of the year. The reason for this is said to have been pressure from the Bafin .

Litigation

Ship funds

The MMWarburg & CO provides ship funds to that constructed on complex intragroup sales and investment companies as Vigor and Atalanta are handled. The bank collects high, sometimes double-digit, commissions for the high-risk contracts concluded with investors. In 2015, the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe confirmed the judgment against MMWarburg & CO , to repay an injured customer the 50,000 euros plus interest he had invested in the MT “MARGARA” ship fund . The court condemned the bank “for incorrect advice on the payment of damages” , since MMWarburg & CO had received “a very substantial commission, and thus a real kick-back that required clarification ” .

Cum-ex deals

On January 20, 2016, the premises of the bank were searched as a result of a tax investigation . In the course of the investigation into the cum-ex transactions , MMWarburg & CO was informed by the Hamburg tax authorities in October 2016 that the tax assessments for the years 2009 to 2011 had to be corrected to the detriment of Warburg-Bank. At the instruction of the Federal Ministry of Finance , the Hamburg tax authorities issued a tax assessment to the Warburg-Bank in early 2018 in the amount of 43 million euros plus 13 million euros in interest. The bank will take legal action against the decision. In March 2018, tax investigators again searched the bank and private real estate of the main shareholder Olearius.

In January 2019 it was announced that the bank had filed a lawsuit against Deutsche Bank with the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court in December 2018 . The Süddeutsche Zeitung quotes from the complaint that it has failed to withhold due taxes and pay them to the tax authorities for years in large share transactions (“ Cum Ex ”) . Deutsche Bank rejects all allegations.

According to a report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the auditing company Deloitte has submitted an investigation report on behalf of the financial supervisory authority Bafin , which is devastating for Warburg and Olearius. According to current knowledge and assessments, Olearius, together with two employees of the banking group, is said to have committed “particularly serious tax evasion ” in Cum-Ex share deals, as stated in a summary of the test report of February 19, 2019, published by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, NDR and WDR is available. In it Deloitte comes to the conclusion that Olearius has also violated legal regulations for the management of banks. The Bafin could therefore demand that he be removed from his position on the Warburg supervisory board. According to the Deloitte test report, there are “sufficient indications” for this.

In March 2020, the Bonn Regional Court sentenced the bank to repay EUR 176 million in capital gains tax . The bank had wrongly received this money as part of the cum-ex deals. MMWarburg & CO appealed against it. A month later, the city of Hamburg finally demanded money back in the amount of 160 million euros.

According to information from Süddeutscher Zeitung and WDR, an approximately 280-page indictment in the Warburg case was received by the Bonn Regional Court on June 4, 2020 . Two former and two active employees of the banking group were accused in 13 cases of particularly serious tax evasion . The indictment put the damage at 326 million euros.

MMWarburg & CO Group GmbH

Parent company

  • MMWarburg & CO (AG & Co.) KGaA Hamburg
    • MMWarburg & CO representative office in Berlin
    • MMWarburg & CO Private Banking Frankfurt
    • MMWarburg & CO Private Banking Cologne
    • MMWarburg & CO Private Banking Munich, Corporate Finance

Branches

In October 2016, the subsidiary bank structure was dissolved and the Hallbaum, Löbbecke, Plump and Schwäbische Bank banks were merged into the parent bank MMWarburg & CO.

The former branches have been functioning as offices since January 1, 2020.

Former banks in the Warburg Banking Group:

Subsidiary banks

  • Marcard, Stein & Co , Hamburg
  • MMWarburg Hypothekenbank AG, Hamburg
  • MMWarburg (Schweiz) AG, Zurich (liquidation was decided on March 1, 2018)

Capital management companies

  • Warburg Invest Kapitalanlagegesellschaft mbH, Hamburg
  • Warburg Invest AG, Hanover

Financial services

  • Warburg Research GmbH (stock analysis), Hamburg
  • Private Client Partners AG (asset management, legal and tax advice), Zurich

Shipping companies

  • MS RHL Audacia (container ship) Schiffahrtsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg
  • MS RHL Novare ( Bulk Carrier ) Schiffahrtsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg
  • RHL Hamburger Lloyd Shipping Trust GmbH, Hamburg

Real estate companies

  • Warburg-HIH Invest Real Estate GmbH, Hamburg; national and international real estate investments; has real estate assets of around 5.7 billion euros. The portfolio of the capital management company currently comprises 56 funds with 6.7 billion euros in assets under management .

literature

  • Alfred Vagts: MM Warburg & CO. A banking house in German world politics 1905–1933 , in: Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 45, 1958, issue 3, pages 289–388.
  • E. Rosenbaum, AJ Sherman: The banking house MMWarburg & Co. 1798–1938 . Christians, Hamburg 1976, ISBN 3-7672-0420-7 .
  • Eckart Kleßmann : MMWarburg & Co 1798–1998. The story of a banking house . Dölling and Galitz, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-933374-27-8 .
  • Ron Chernow : The Warburgs - A Family Odyssey . Siedler-Verlag , Munich, 1994, ISBN 3-886805-21-2
  • Ron Chernow: The Warburgs. The Twentieth Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish family . Random House, New York 1993, ISBN 0-679-74359-6 .

Web links

Commons : MMWarburg & CO  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Master data of the credit institute at the Deutsche Bundesbank
  2. ↑ [1] Press release of April 30, 2020
  3. ↑ Heinz-Roger Dahms: Warburg-Bank: From the reserve Die ZEIT, September 6, 2017.
  4. ↑ Press release of May 16, 2017.
  5. ↑ Julius H. Scheps: The Warburgs - Ron Chernow's great story of a Hamburg family Die Zeit, December 2, 1994.
  6. ↑ MMWarburg & Co- History Website MMWarburg & Co; Retrieved November 9, 2012.
  7. ^ E. Rosenbaum, AJ Sherman: The banking house MM Warburg & Co. 1798-1938. Hans Christians Verlag, Hamburg, 1976, page 30.
  8. ^ E. Rosenbaum, AJ Sherman: The banking house MM Warburg & Co. 1798-1938. Hans Christians Verlag, Hamburg, 1976, page 15.
  9. ^ E. Rosenbaum, AJ Sherman: The banking house MM Warburg & Co. 1798-1938. Hans Christians Verlag, Hamburg, 1976, page 29
  10. ^ E. Rosenbaum, AJ Sherman: The banking house MM Warburg & Co. 1798-1938. Hans Christians Verlag, Hamburg, 1976, page 35
  11. ^ E. Rosenbaum, AJ Sherman: The banking house MM Warburg & Co. 1798-1938. Hans Christians Verlag, Hamburg, 1976, page 45
  12. ↑ Ron Chernow: The Warburgs - A family odyssey. Siedler-Verlag, Munich, 1994, page 28
  13. ^ E. Rosenbaum, AJ Sherman: The banking house MM Warburg & Co. 1798-1938. Hans Christians Verlag, Hamburg, 1976, pages 55-57
  14. ↑ Ron Chernow: The Warburgs - A family odyssey. Siedler-Verlag, Munich, 1994, page 32.
  15. ^ E. Rosenbaum, AJ Sherman: The banking house MM Warburg & Co. 1798-1938. Verlag Hans Christians, Hamburg, 1976, pages 66, 67.
  16. ↑ Ron Chernow: The Warburgs - A family odyssey. Siedler-Verlag, Munich, 1994, page 29 / page 196.
  17. ↑ Ron Chernow: The Warburgs - A family odyssey. Siedler-Verlag, Munich, 1994, page 42
  18. ^ E. Rosenbaum, AJ Sherman: The banking house MM Warburg & Co. 1798-1938. Hans Christians Verlag, Hamburg, 1976, page 82, 83
  19. ↑ Boris Barth : Neither the bourgeoisie nor the nobility - Between nation state and cosmopolitan business - On the social history of German-Jewish high finance before the First World War. History and Society, Issue 25, 1999, page 100
  20. ↑ Gabrielle Hoffmann: Max M. Warburg. Ellert & Richter Verlag, Hamburg, 2009, p. 35
  21. ↑ Gabrielle Hoffmann: Max M. Warburg. Ellert & Richter Verlag, Hamburg, 2009, p. 50
  22. ↑ Detlef Krause: The Commerz- und Disconto-Bank 1870-1920 / 23: banking history as system history. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart, 2004, p. 178
  23. ↑ Gabrielle Hoffmann: Max M. Warburg. Ellert & Richter Verlag, Hamburg, 2009, pp. 42–45
  24. ↑ Ron Chernow: The Warburgs - A family odyssey. Siedler-Verlag, Munich, 1994, page 153
  25. ^ Alfred Vagts : MM Warburg & CO. A banking house in German world politics 1905-1933, quarterly for social and economic history, 45th volume, H. 3.1958, page 303
  26. ^ E. Rosenbaum, AJ Sherman: The banking house MM Warburg & Co. 1798-1938. Hans Christians Verlag, Hamburg, 1976, page 120
  27. ↑ Gabrielle Hoffmann: Max M. Warburg. Ellert & Richter Verlag, Hamburg, 2009, p. 55
  28. ↑ Gabrielle Hoffmann: Max M. Warburg. Ellert & Richter Verlag, Hamburg, 2009, p. 64
  29. ↑ Gabrielle Hoffmann: Max M. Warburg. Ellert & Richter Verlag, Hamburg, 2009, p. 70
  30. ↑ Ron Chernow: The Warburgs - A family odyssey. Siedler-Verlag, Munich, 1994, page 188
  31. ↑ Alfred Vagts: MM Warburg & CO. A banking house in German world politics 1905-1933, quarterly for social and economic history, 45th volume, issue 3, 1958, pages 289-290
  32. ^ Frank Bajohr: The Jewish Hamburg - Max M. Warburg Institute for the history of the German Jews, Hamburg
  33. ^ Gary Richardson, Jessie Romero: The Meeting at Jekyll Island. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond / Official Journal of the Federal Reserve History
  34. ↑ Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: Chapter Two - Banking Reform 1907–1913 Official History of the Fed of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
  35. ^ Biography of Paul M. Warburg. Official Federal Reserve History Paul M. Warburg biography
  36. ↑ Ron Chernow: The Warburgs - A family odyssey. Siedler-Verlag, Munich, 1994, page 185
  37. ↑ Ron Chernow : The Warburgs - A family odyssey. Siedler-Verlag, Munich, 1994, page 205
  38. ↑ Ron Chernow: The Warburgs - A family odyssey. Siedler-Verlag, Munich, 1994, page 257.
  39. ^ Ina Lorenz: Biography Carl Melchior. Institute for the History of German Jews, Hamburg
  40. ↑ Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke: Hamburgische Biografie-Personenlexikon, Volume 2. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen, 2003, page 278.
  41. ↑ Ron Chernow: The Warburgs - A family odyssey. Siedler-Verlag, Munich, 1994, pages 298-302, page 337
  42. ↑ Ron Chernow: The Warburgs - A family odyssey. Siedler-Verlag, Munich, 1994, page 343
  43. ↑ Ron Chernow: The Warburgs - A family odyssey. Siedler-Verlag, Munich, 1994, page 344
  44. ^ Frankfurter Zeitung: The Warburg Bank goes to Holland. Frankfurter Zeitung, September 3, 1929
  45. ↑ Tanja Drössel: The English in Hamburg 1914 to 1945. Cuvellier Verlag, Göttingen, 2008, page 111
  46. ↑ Ron Chernow: The Warburgs - A family odyssey. Siedler-Verlag, Munich, 1994, page 404
  47. ↑ Tanja Drössel: The English in Hamburg 1914 to 1945. Cuvellier Verlag, Göttingen, 2008, page 112
  48. ↑ Ron Chernow: The Warburgs - A family odyssey. Siedler-Verlag, Munich, 1994, pages 443/449
  49. ↑ Ron Chernow: The Warburgs - A family odyssey. Siedler-Verlag, Munich, 1994, page 487
  50. ↑ David Jünger: Years of Uncertainty: Emigration Plans of German Jews 1933–1938. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2016 page 155
  51. ^ Francis R. Nicosia: Zionism and Anti-Semitism in the Third Reich. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen, 2008, page 122
  52. ↑ ihr.org Review Powerful Jewish Dynasty Profiled
  53. ^ Marion A. Kaplan, Beate Meyer: Jüdische Welten: Jews in Germany from the 18th century to the present. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen, page 336
  54. ↑ Michael Naumann : lucky - one life. Hoffmann and Campe Verlag, 2017
  55. ↑ Der Spiegel: Aryanization: “Nobody has something to celebrate here.” Der Spiegel, issue 52/1987 of December 21, 1987.
  56. ^ Curriculum vitae of Max Marcus Alfons Warburg ( Memento from April 5, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
  57. ↑ Linked to tradition - committed to the future Company history of MMWarburg & CO
  58. ↑ Heinz-Roger Dahms: Warburg-Bank: From the reserve Die ZEIT, September 6, 2017.
  59. ↑ Company of the Warburg Group Website MMWarburg & CO; Retrieved July 1, 2014.
  60. ↑ MM Warburg joins the Schwäbische Bank . In: Die Welt , December 18, 2008.
  61. ↑ Warburg Bank goes on the offensive with structural reform - Kurztext boersen-zeitung.de. In: www.boersen-zeitung.de. Retrieved October 12, 2016 .
  62. ↑ a b NDR: Cum Ex: From the end of a Chose. Retrieved October 20, 2018 .
  63. ↑ a b CORRECTIV: “Coup of the century - attack on Europe's taxpayers” (HD, panorama on #CumExFiles). October 19, 2018, accessed October 20, 2018 .
  64. ↑ Klaus Ott Bonn: Justice buttons itself in the cum-ex scandal banks . In: sueddeutsche.de . June 30, 2019, ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed July 10, 2019]).
  65. ↑ Landesbank: NordLB sells remaining asset manager shares to MM Warburg. Retrieved July 10, 2019 .
  66. ↑ Jörn Lauterbach: Change in the supervisory board: A bang at Warburg Bank in Hamburg . November 23, 2019 ( welt.de [accessed December 2, 2019]).
  67. ↑ Jens Brambusch: BGH waddles Warburg. Capital, March 15, 2016
  68. ↑ Jens Brambusch: The castaways Capital, issue 09/2013, page 171-175
  69. ↑ sueddeutsche.de: Millions: Federal government forces Hamburg to take action against renowned private bank
  70. ↑ dpa: Warburg Bank rejects allegations of cum-ex deals. Süddeutsche Zeitung , January 16, 2018, accessed on August 7, 2020 . .
  71. ^ Georg Mascolo, Klaus Ott: Hamburg private bank sued Deutsche Bank. Süddeutsche Zeitung , January 9, 2019
  72. ^ Georg Mascolo, Klaus Ott: Assumed Cum-Ex-Deals. Report from auditors charged Warburg-Bank. In: SZ.de from April 6, 2019 (accessed on May 8, 2019)
  73. ↑ Cum-Ex: Warburg-Bank has to repay millions , NDR from March 19, 2020; Accessed April 22, 2020
  74. ↑ Warburg Bank appeals against the Cum-Ex judgment , NDR of March 22, 2020; Accessed April 22, 2020
  75. ↑ Hamburg demands tax back from Warburg Bank , NDR from April 22, 2020; Accessed April 22, 2020
  76. ↑ Klaus Ott, Jörg Schmitt, Jan Willmroth, Nils Wischmeyer: Cum-Ex-Scandal: Because of noble. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, June 5, 2020
  77. ↑ Centralization, fluctuation and requirement profile: This is how MM Warburg & Co positions itself in private banking. Retrieved June 15, 2019 .

Coordinates: 53 ° 33 '8.6 "  N , 9 ° 59" 52.2 "  E