J. & W. Seligman & Co.

Prominent U.S. investment bank c. 1860s-1920s. Continues to the present as a mutual fund manager.

History

It was founded by Joseph Seligman and seven brothers in New York in 1840 as a dry goods merchant and achieved early success selling Union war bonds in Europe during the American Civil War. In the post-Civil War robber baron era, the firm invested heavily in railroad finance, in particular acting as broker of transactions engineered by Jay Gould. In the early 20th century the firm backed the construction of the Panama Canal. In this period, J. & W. Seligman underwrote the securities of a variety of companies, participating in stock and bond issues in the railroad and steel and wire industries, investments in Russia and Peru, the formation of the Standard Oil Company, and shipbuilding, bridges, bicycles, mining, and a variety of other industries. In 1910 William C. Durant of the fledgling General Motors Corporation gave control of his company's board to the Seligmans and Lee, Higginson & Co. in return for underwriting $15 million worth of corporate notes.

The firm's investment banking business declined by the 1930s. In 1938, in response to the Glass-Steagall Act, spun off its securities underwriting business as Union Securities. Union Securities was bought by securities broker Eastman Dillon in 1956. Eastman Dillon (later Bythe, Eastman Dillon) was acquired by securities broker Paine Webber, which in 2000 became part of financial conglomerate UBS AG. Parts of J&W Seligman continue as a closed end investment company, Tri-Continental Corporation, and as Seligman mutual funds.

In the 19th century, the U.S. partnership of J.&W. Seligman had affiliates in Paris, Frankfurt and elsewhere. These entites became independent in 1897. The London partnership, Seligman Bros., was bought by S.G. Warburg & Co. in 1957.

References

Wall Street by Robert Gambee (New York Book Distributors, 1985).