Kuhn, Loeb & Co.

Kuhn, Loeb & Co.

Kuhn, Loeb & Co. was a bulge bracket, investment bank founded in 1867 by Abraham Kuhn and Solomon Loeb. Under the leadership of Jacob H. Schiff, it grew to be one of the most influential investment banks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, financing America's expanding railways and growth companies, including Western Union and Westinghouse, and thereby becoming the principal rival of J.P. Morgan & Co. In the years following Schiff's death in 1920, the firm was led by Otto Kahn and Felix Warburg, men who had already solidified their roles as Schiff's able successors. However, the firm's fortunes began to fade following World War II, when it failed to keep pace with a rapidly changing investment banking industry, where Kuhn, Loeb's old-world, genteel ways, did not seem to fit; the days of the gentleman-banker had passed. The firm lost its independence in 1977 when it merged with Lehman Brothers, to create Lehman Brothers, Kuhn, Loeb Inc. The combined firm was itself acquired in 1984 by American Express, forming Shearson Lehman/American Express and with that, the Kuhn, Loeb name was lost forever. Kuhn Loeb is considered to be one of the last Gentlemen Investment houses.