Prussia Consortium

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The so-called Prussian consortium was a community of German banks that - legally and economically independent - placed the Prussian government bonds and later those of the German Empire on the capital market from 1866 until the end of the Empire . It was the largest German issuing consortium at the time, but it had no influence on state financial policy.

history

The Frankfurt banking house Rothschild had had the monopoly of issuing Prussian government bonds since 1860. The new foreign policy challenges that Prussia faced made it necessary to distribute the risky and capital-intensive issuing business among several banks. The Prussian consortium was founded in 1866 after the so-called mobilization loan of the Prussian state had already been brokered in 1859 by Bankhaus Bleichröder , Bankhaus Magnus , Bankhaus Gebr. Schickler , Disconto-Gesellschaft and three other Berlin private banks. The control of the Prussian consortium was incumbent on the state Prussian maritime trade . The lead managers were the Bleichröder bank and the Berliner Disconto-Gesellschaft. They quickly succeeded in merging the most important private banks (among them again the Frankfurt Rothschilds) and the Berlin trading company in a consortium. There was also a bank from Cologne and another bank from Frankfurt.

The consortium took over the government bonds and placed them on the market. This financed , among other things, the Franco-German War and the nationalization of the railways in Prussia. After the founding of the Empire in 1871 and the increasing need for capital, the consortium was enlarged. In 1876 two Hamburg banks were added - including the Norddeutsche Bank . The circle of banks grew in the 1880s to include banks from Leipzig , Munich (e.g. Bayerische Hypotheken- und Wechselbank ), Nuremberg , Mannheim , Strasbourg and Stuttgart . However, the Berlin institutes that handled the main business continued to predominate. Other banks only accounted for a loan total of 28.1%. Nevertheless, this meant a close connection of all important banking and stock exchanges in the German Empire. Although more banks were added to the consortium, nothing changed in the primacy of the Berlin banks. Of the 28 banks involved in 1913, thirteen were based in Berlin alone. The most powerful bank for decades was the Disconto-Gesellschaft.

The composition of the consortium also changed in other ways over time. While between 1867 and 1912 the share of private banks fell from 55 to 30 percent, the share of joint stock banks rose from 31 to 64 percent. There was also a decline at the participating state banks.

literature

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Erich Erlenbach: An anniversary in the year of the golden mean. The Berliner Handels- und Frankfurter Bank celebrates 25 years of its history . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of April 12, 1980, p. 17.