Talk:Bank Lombard Odier & Co/Archive 1
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Sorry y'all, this is rather long, but hopefully you'll enjoy the read :-)
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The Lombard Odier Group is an independent Swiss banking group, founded in 1796. Its head office is based in Geneva. Its operations are organised into three divisions: private banking (wealth management), asset management (mainly the management of funds for investment), and back and middle office services for other financial institutions (e.g. banking IT). At the end of 2018, the bank reported outstanding balances managed through these three divisions totalling 259 billion Swiss francs in managed assets, which in fact makes it one of the biggest players in the Swiss financial sector. The group offers its services to a private and institutional client base. As the oldest private bank in Geneva,[3] the group stems from the fusion of Lombard, Odier & Cie with the bank Darier, Hentsch & Cie in 2002, the latter having been initially founded in 1796 by Henri Hentsch. The firm was therefore created with the corporate name Lombard, Odier, Darier, Hentsch & Cie in 2002, which was then simplified in 2010 to become the Lombard Odier Group. Nevertheless, the firm continues to include on its official logo the names of these four founding partners. Since 2014, the bank has held the status of Limited Liability Company (LLC). The Lombard Odier Group is a legal holding company under Swiss law, bearing the name Lombard Odier Company SCmA since 2016.[4] This holding company owns all firms belonging to the group, most notably the bank Lombard, Odier & Cie SA, and Lombard Odier Asset Management (Europe) Limited in London, which forms the asset management branch of the group. Lombard Odier Investment Managers (LOIM) is the name the group is known by in the internationl field of asset management. The Lombard Odier group began to establish itself internationally in 1951, by opening branches little by little in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. With its vast network of collaborators, the group has around 2,400 employees worldwide. History
The founding families
The Lombard family (from Lombardi) arrived in Geneva in 1573 from Tortorella (South Italy), where they suffered religious persecution.[5][6] The two sons of Theodoro Lombardi, César and Marc-Antoine Lombard, performed dressage and were involved in the horse trade. They received the title of burgesses of Geneva in 1589 for their services in the fight against the duke of Savoie.[5] Jean-Gédéon Lombard, a 6th generation descendent of César Lombard, became associated with the bank Hentsch, Lombard & Cie in 1798, marking the entry of the Lombard family into the field of Genevan banking.[5] The Odier family is first documented as being in Geneva circa 1714, the same time when Antoine Odier received his title as Genevan burgess.[7] The family came from Pont-en-Royans in France.[7] Members of the family held positions as politicians, doctors, artists, engineers, and then bankers. Charles Odier became associated with the bank Lombard, Bonna & Cie in 1830, which then became Lombard, Odier & Cie.[7] The Darier family arrived in Geneva in 1738 from the Dauphiné region in France.[8] Louis Darier died accidentally shortly after the birth of his son, Hugues Darier, who became a prominent figure in clockmaking and obtained the title of burgess of Geneva in 1787.[8] Jules Darier-Rey, Hugues’ grandson, became associated with the bank Chaponnière & Cie in 1873. The firm became Darier, Chaponnière & Cie in 1875, and then Darier & Cie in 1880.[8] Another of Hugues Darier’s sons, Jean-Louis Darier (1766–1825), earlier on contributed to the beginnings of the bank Ferrier, Lullin & Cie in 1795, but this organisation remains without any link to what is now Lombard Odier.[8] The Hentsch family arrived in Geneva circa 1758, while Benjamin-Gottlob Hentsch (a clergyman) emigrated from Lower-Lusatia to become a tutor in Switzerland.[9] His son, Henri Hentsch (1761–1835), founded the family bank in 1796, the starting point for what is today the Lombard Odier Group.[9] Origins of the bank (1796–1800)
From 1789, the business and finance trade in Geneva were impacted by the French Revolution.[10][11] In 1793, Henri Hentsch was arrested by the Genevan revolutionaries and temporarily exiled to Nyon, where he began a silk trading business with an associate, Edmé Mémo.[12][13][14] Despite the environment of economic difficulty and increased unemployment,[15] Henri Hentsch came back to Geneva to found the bank Henri Hentsch & Cie on the 11th January 1796, at the age of 35.[11][13][16] The firm, designated as a house of “Silk and Sales”, traded silk in parallel with its banking activities as a first step. This was a classic format at the time, but it quickly abandoned trading to concentrate on banking as its sole focus.[11][13] The firm allowed traders to take out loans, negotiate debts, settle bills of exchange, and more generally it allowed the trade of precious metals to be conducted, and exchange transactions to be carried out. All of this occurred at a time when several currencies were in circulation in Geneva.[13] On the 26th April 1798, the Republic of Geneva was annexed by Napoleon Bonaparte’s France. Henri Hentsch’s cousin, Jean-Gédéon Lombard, then became a member of the Executive Council of the City of Geneva.[12][17] Initially a proctor of Henri Hentsch, Jean-Gédéon became his partner at the bank on the 19th June 1798.[12] The firm then took the name Henri Hentsch & Lombard.[12] However, not long after this, Henri Hentsch and Jean-Gédéon Lombard came to a disagreement on the strategy they should take facing the climate of local economic downturn;[15] Jean-Gédéon Lombard wanted to limit the risks imposed by concentrating on bills of exchange operations which generated fixed commissions, while Henri Hentsch, renowned for his entrepreneurial and tenacious character, saw them moving into the international market, particularly for the finance of operations led by the French Empire.[13] The two partners separated amicably on the 22nd September 1800, and the bank returned to its former name Henri Hentsch & Cie, while Jean Gédéon Lombard partnered with his brother-in-law Jean-Jacques Lullin to create the bank Lombard Lullin & Cie.[11][12] Lombard, Odier & Cie
Lombard, Lullin & Cie were heavily affected by the economic environment during the bank’s first few years. From 1800, the bankruptcy of the firm Corsanges in Lyon resulted in Jean-Gédéon Lombard losing 30,000 francs, causing Jean-Jacques Lullin to go bankrupt.[18] In spite of this, the firm was able to continue in business. Jean-Jacques Lullin left the bank on the 31 December 1815, but continued as a limited partner until his death in 1837.[19] Therefore, from 1816, the firm took the name Jean-Gédéon Lombard & Cie until the 1st January 1826, when Jean-Gédéon Lombard partnered with Paul-Frédéric Bonna. The bank then took the name Lombard, Bonna & Cie.[20] On the 31st March 1830, Paul Frédéric Bonna left the firm to start his own bank, Bonna & Cie. The bank remained active for almost a century, before experiencing difficulties and being absorbed into Hentsch & Cie in 1920.[20] In 1830, Jean-Gédéon Lombard (aged 66), handed over the bank to his eldest son Jean-Eloi Lombard.[19] He then appointed Charles Odier as associate manager on 1st April 1830, and the bank became Lombard, Odier & Cie from then on.[5][21] Charles Odier, who was 25 years old at the time, had learned the banking profession from the firm Gabriel Odier & Cie, which was managed by his Parisian cousin, and held significant assets from the success of the company F. Courant & Odier, which he founded in 1825 in Le Havre for importing cotton from the U.S.A..[22] Jean-Eloi Lombard dedicated himself to local business while Charles Odier concerned himself with international business, particularly thanks to contacts that he had maintained from the U.S..[22] Under the management of Jean-Eloi Lombard and Charles Odier, the bank financed large infrastructure works which characterised the Industrial Revolution. In 1834, Lombard, Odier & Cie co-financed the construction work at the Canal de Roanne in Digoin. This was a project which was not profitable despite its successful end result. The firm then embarked on financing railways, and from 1852 to 1872, Charles Odier acted as the administrator of the West Switzerland railways.[22] In 1834, Alexandre Lombard, the third son of Jean-Gédéon Lombard (aged 24), became a managing partner for the bank.[23] He was responsible for steering Lombard, Odier & Cie towards the American market,[23] at a time when the American Frontier needed both funding and construction for facilities, roads, railways and canals. This approach, which was deemed risky due to it coinciding with the end of the American financial crisis of 1837, proved to be a winning strategy ten years later. As the political and economic environment in Europe deteriorated following the revolts of 1848, the U.S. experienced great expansion. Alexandre Lombard prioritised financing American railway companies. The bank issued letters to its clients containing quotes for international stock, at a time when these were difficult to access.[24] In 1857, the partners from Lombard, Odier & Cie participated in creating the Geneva stock market.[25] On the 1st December 1859, the only son of Charles Odier, James Odier, became a partner at the bank. This followed his trip to the U.S. in 1854 and his marriage to Blanche Lombard in 1856, the daughter of Jean-Eloi.[26] James Odier continued to grow Lombard, Odier & Cie on American soil.[26] In 1870 he joined the executive board for the Genevan branch of what would become the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas S.A. (Bank of Paris and the Netherlands).[27][28] Along with Jules Darier-Rey, in 1872 he also co-founded the Genevan life insurance company Genevoise Compagnie d'Assurance sur la Vie, which would later be chaired by his son Émile and then his grandson Edmond.[29] Alexis Lombard, the son of Jean-Eloi Lombard and brother-in-law of James Odier, became a partner in 1866.[30] He became a founding member of the Chamber of Commerce of Geneva in 1872, created the Genevan Bank of loans and deposits in 1881, and became a member of the board of the Swiss National Bank after it was created in 1907. Alexis Lombard and James Odier remained partners at the bank for half a century, continuing to manage the firm through the First World War, while their descendents Albert Lombard and Émile Odier were conscripted into the Swiss army to guard the borders of the country.[26] Throughout the war, business was unstable for the bank; nevertheless, they made it through this time without facing any major adversities, thanks to the strength of the Swiss franc and the country’s neutrality, which allowed Swiss banks to act as places of refuge in Europe. Moreover, the bank remained primarily focused on investments in the U.S. which were not directly affected by the conflict. At the beginning of the 20th century, Lombard, Odier & Cie had only 16 employees and three office staff, though this it was one of the biggest private banks in Geneva.[31] After the Great War, Émile Odier, (partner from 1890), Albert Lombard (partner from 1908), Albert’s first cousin Jean Lombard (partner from 1913), and Émile’s son Edmond Odier (partner from 1919) took over the management of the bank.[32] In 1921, Lombard, Odier & Cie assumed ownership of the bank Lenoir, Julliard & Cie which was created in 1795.[33] In 1929 and at the beginning of the 1930s, the Swiss financial sector was affected by the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, which impacted the whole of Europe. Several Swiss banks recapitalised or had to close, such as the Banque de Genève (1931) and the Comptoir d’Escompte de Genève (1934).[34] Affected by its exposure to American markets, but eager to show that it would not be brought down by difficulties, Lombard, Odier & Cie changed its statutes in 1933 to become a general partnership, which held the group of acting partners responsible with their own personal assets in case of collapse.[35] Nevertheless, the bank avoided this situation. In 1937, with the death of Edmond Odier, his wife Francine Odier-Dunant became a non-executive partner of the firm so that it could keep its registered company name and its status. She kept this position until her son Marcel Odier succeeded her in 1948.[32] At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the bank Lombard, Odier & Cie had 75 collaborators, 38 of which were conscripted by the Swiss army.[36] In 1940, Georges Lombard became a partner but was also conscripted.[36] In 1941, the bank took ownership of SAGED, bringing with it Richard Pictet, Jean E. Bonna (great-grandson of Frédéric Bonna), André Aubert, and Raymond Barbey as partners for the bank Lombard, Odier & Cie.[36] As in the previous world war, the bank managed its way through this time thanks to the country’s neutrality which meant that Swiss banks were entrusted with the role as place of refuge for foreign and national capital.[37] After the Second World War, Marcel Odier, the oldest son of Edmond Odier, rejoined George Lombard in the role of partner in 1848.[38] The bank’s archives estimate that in 1950 its private clients’ assets reached nearly a billion Swiss francs and mostly came from Switzerland, France and Belgium.[39] Under the management of Marcel Odier, the bank became international, opening its first branch in Montreal in 1951, and established its first investment funding in Canadian real estate aimed at its private clients.[38] In 1957, Thierry Barbey became a partner at the bank, and in 1961 his first cousin Yves Oltramare reached the same status. They then created a financial analysis branch in the bank, and guided Lombard, Odier & Cie towards a new venture in managing investment funds, aimed at a client base of institutional investors which had just began to emerge (pension organisations and insurance companies among others).[38] In doing so, Lombard, Odier & Cie regularly began to introduce funds in which institutional investors could invest money for them to manage. With the arrival of Jean-François Chaponnière, Alain Patry, and Fernand Oltramare as partners in 1964, then of Laurent Dominici and Pierre Keller in 1970, the bank continued developing its base of international institutional clients, and opened divisions in America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.[38] In 1983, Lombard, Odier & Cie introduced a fund called “SCI/TECH” aimed at institutional clients, in collaboration with Merrill Lynch Asset Management and Nomura Capital Management. The fund raised 835 million dollars after when it was launched, making it the biggest fundraiser in the history of investment funding at the time.[40] At the end of the 1990s, Lombard, Odier & Cie had around 800 employees, 600 of which were in Geneva, and 200 in foreign offices.[41] The firm merged with Darier, Hentsch & Cie in 2002. Darier, Hentsch & Cie
Henri Hentsch turned to financing the French Empire from the year 1800. The bank Henri Hentsch & Cie most notably organised the transfer of funds to Italy, where the Empire was expanding.[42] Thanks to its operations, Henri Hentsch had developed good relationships with the French upper class.[13] In 1812, he founded the bank Henri Hentsch, Blanc & Cie[12] in Paris, then settled in the French capital the following year, delegating the management of the Genevan bank to his three sons.[9][42] In 1826, he founded a second Parisian bank, Hentsch, Lecointe, Desarts & Cie.[43] After his death on the 14th August 1835, his sons formally became partners at the bank Hentsch & Cie in Geneva, but did not take on managing the firms that their father had founded in Paris.[43] In 1854, one of Henri Hentsch’s grandsons, Jean-Alexis Henri Hentsch (aged 36) decided to leave to discover the Western United States after twelve years as the head of the family bank in Geneva. The management of the bank was then entrusted to his brother. After a long adventure, Jean-Alexis Henri Hentsch settled down in San Francisco, at the time of the Gold Rush. He opened a bank there, which he named Hentsch & Cie. The business was a success. He was named honorary consul of Switzerland in San Francisco in 1859, and then returned to Geneva in 1873, where he founded the Swiss American Bank, which would then become the parent company of the bank Hentsch & Cie in San Francisco; unrelated, however, to what is now the Lombard Odier group[44]. In 1854, Édouard Hentsch (the grandson of Henri Hentsch) resumed managing of the bank Mathieu, Hentsch & Cie in Paris.[43] He enjoyed a high-ranking career in finance, later becoming the president of the bank Comptoir national d’escompte de Paris, and then the Banque de l’Indochine, before founding the Swiss railways bank, la Banque des Chemins de fer suisses.[45] He died bankrupted by the crash of the copper trade in 1889, which caused the bank Comptoir national d’escompte de Paris to struggle with increasingly high repayments on his personal fortune.[45] Away from this turmoil, the bank Hentsch & Cie continued its operations in Geneva and was passed down the family for several generations. In the 1950s, the bank Hentsch & Cie became a pioneer in the distribution of investment funds in Switzerland, under the management of Léonard Hentsch.[16] In 1837, Jean-François Chaponnière founded the bank Chaponnière & Cie in Geneva, which then became the bank Darier, Chaponnière & Cie in 1876, during the time when Jules Darier-Rey became a partner. This then became Darier & Cie in 1880.[10] The bank specialised in commercial business and the transport sector.[46] Before becoming a partner at the bank, in 1872 Jules Darier-Rey co-founded the first life insurance company in Geneva, La Genevoise,[47] with James Odier. As with the bank Hentsch & Cie, Darier & Cie was passed down through the family for several generations. One of the first merger projects between Hentsch & Cie and Darier & Cie was planned in 1971 by the Hentsch bank, but did not succeed then.[16] The merger finally happened on the 1st of January 1991, producing the bank Darier, Hentsch & Cie.[10][16] The newspaper Le Temps claimed that “those who knew the project well spoke just as much about it as an absorption of Hentsch by Darier, as they did a merger between equals”.[16] Historical collaborations (1840–1933)
Throughout their independent existence, the banks Lombard, Odier & Cie, Hentsch & Cie, and Darier & Cie were led to collaborate several times. In 1840, at a time when the Industrial Revolution needed large scale funding, but wasn’t able to be insured by a single financial firm, the banks Lombard, Odier & Cie, Hentsch & Cie, Candolle Turrettini & Cie, and Louis Pictet & Cie partnered together to form the “Quatuor”, which invested particularly in European railways, in the mines in the Loire region of France, and even in Piedmont loans.[48] In 1872, Quatuor merged with Omnium, another private banking association in Geneva founded in 1849, regrouping Paccard, Ador & Cie, P.F. Bonna & Cie, as well as Ph. Roget & Fils. Together, these firms partnered with the new Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas to create the Finance Association of Geneva, with the aim of collecting enough capital to conduct financial operations in Switzerland and abroad.[27][34] Following this, the Financial Union of Geneva was created in 1890, coming out of the merger of the Financial Association of Geneva, and the railways bank La Banque Nouvelle des Chemins de Fer.[37] The financial union, having 12 million Swiss francs in capital when starting, consolidated 12 private banks including Hentsch & Cie, Lombard, Odier & Cie and Darier & Cie. It also played an important role in the world of Genevan finance from 1890 to 1933, in funding large infrastructure projects in Europe and the U.S..[34][37][49] According to the book Les grandes heures des banquiers suisses published in 1986, this collaboration between Genevan private banks would be at the heart of their sustainability. It comments that “the group of Genevan private banks resisted the malice of the times better than other cities in Switzerland. Indeed, these firms knew to unite at the right time, in order to participate fervently (by means of the Financial Union) in the issuance transactions and granting of loans in Switzerland and abroad. Furthermore, it allowed them to create and give a boost to a series of investment companies (holding companies, investment trusts, etc.), the securities of which gave a long-term boost to the Genevan stock market”.[50] 2002–present
In 2002, the bank Lombard, Odier & Cie merged with Darier, Hentsch & Cie, producing the partnership Lombard, Odier, Darier, Hentsch & Cie.[51] The partnership allowed for one of the most significant private banks in Switzerland to be formed, totalling 20 branches abroad, 2,000 employees, and 95 billion euros in managed assets.[51] The merger was accompanied by a cost and workforce reduction plan, at a difficult time made even harsher by the fall of the stock market following the eruption of the dot-com bubble.[51] In 2006, the bank Lombard, Odier, Darier, Hentsch & Cie became included in the Henokiens, an association which brings together family-owned businesses with over 200 years of history.[52] The descendants of the four historical families, Thierry Lombard, Patrick Odier, Pierre Darier and Christophe Hentsch were included in the bank’s partners until the departure of Pierre Darier in 2010. Some time later, the firm simplified its corporate name and became the Compagnie Lombard, Odier & Cie.[4] Nevertheless, the firm continued to feature the names of the four former partners on its official logo. The firm changed its legal structure on the 1st January 2014, becoming a private company limited by shares, abandoning its status as a partnership, which held the partners responsible for their own personal assets indefinitely.[53] This change of status also meant that the bank was henceforth obliged to publish its half-year and annual accounts.[53] The banks Pictet, Mirabaud and Gonet simultaneously or shortly after adopted the same status, responding to the needs for transparency, regulatory demands, and limitation of risks, following the closure of the private bank Wegelin & Co as part of a dispute with the U.S. Department of Justice.[53][54] After losing its status as a partnership, the Lombard Odier group considered itself obliged to leave the Association of Private Swiss Bankers (ABPS), which dictated that its members hold this status.[55] On the 31st December 2014, Thierry Lombard retired.[56] Then, in April 2016, his son Alexis Lombard left the firm to join the bank Landolt & Cie in Lausanne, where he formed part of the board of directors.[57] The Lombard Odier group, which was no longer a partnership, was nonetheless able to keep its name despite the Lombard family leaving. On the 31st December 2016, Anne-Marie de Weck retired, after having been named associate manager of the bank in 2002. Annika Falkengren, ex-Executive Director of Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB), succeeded her a few months later, and joined as a partner of the firm in July 2017.[58] In parallel, the Lombard Odier group announced the arrival of Denis Pittet as associate manager.[58] However, Anne-Marie de Weck continued to sit on the administrative Board of the bank. On the 1st January 2019, the group had 6 associate managers: Patrick Odier, Christophe Hentsch, Hubert Keller, Frédéric Rochat, Denis Pittet, and Annika Falkengren.[59] Operations
Wealth Management
The Lombard Odier group’s historic activity lies in wealth management for a private client base (a private banking operation). This operation covers most notably the provision of asset management advice, financial investment advice, tax advice, and estate planning. The wealth management operations are mostly overseen in Geneva, at the Lombard, Odier & Cie SA bank, as one of the companies held by the holding company of the Lombard Odier group. According to the figures from the 2016 financial year, the operations from private banking accounted for 112 billion Swiss francs in outstanding assets from their Swiss and international clientele, with around 50% of the total outstanding amounts managed by the Lombard Odier group[60]. Asset Management
Lombard Odier is just as present in the field of asset management; it has several branches, the leading of which being the management corporation Lombard Odier Asset Management (Europe) Limited, based in London.[61] This firm makes use of the Lombard Odier Investment Managers (Lombard Odier IM) brand, which the group is known by in the international sphere of asset management.[62] This operation is mainly comprised of the management of investment funds placed into shares and bonds, which is added to by investment from hedge funds.[63] These funds are also accessible for clients of the private bank Lombard, Odier & Cie SA, as well as for an international client base of institutional investors and financial advisers outside of the Lombard Odier group.[63] The firm is particularly active in the field of socially responsible investment, most notably in putting forward a range of impact investing capital.[64][65] Since 2015, the management company Lombard Odier IM has been just as active in the area of ETF (exchange-traded funds), following its partnership with ETF Securities.[66] The first ETFs from Lombard Odier were launched in April 2015 to replicate the results of indexes on the bond market (government bonds, enterprise bonds, and developing countries bonds).[67][68][69] In 2018, Lombard Odier IM was one of the first management companies to get through a settlement process managed by a private blockchain for the purchase of securities on the bond market.[70] In 2016, the bank managed 48 billion Swiss francs in its asset management branches, representing around 20% of the total outstanding balances managed by the Lombard.[60] Banking IT Services
Since 2014, the Lombard Odier group has been offering back and middle office IT services to other banking firms, through a tool dubbed “G2”.[71] Most notably, this tool allowed users to manage their client base and buy and sell securities on the market.[72] Initially offered to six external institutions, “G2” turned to another dozen banks as clients.[71] The banking IT operations were trialed in 2016 at an entirely separate company, owned by the holding company for the Lombard Odier group.[72] The bank Lombard, Odier & Cie SA is itself a client of the organisation, in the same way as the external firms that it is able to equip.[72] In 2016, this branch of the Lombard Odier group managed 63 billion Swiss francs from third-party clients, representing around 30% of the total outstanding balances managed by the Lombard Odier group.[60] Philanthropy
The firm’s engagement in philanthropic and humanitarian operations appeared very early into the history of the bank Lombard, Odier & Cie. Alexandre Lombard participated in the supporting committee in his time, aiming to raise money to help those injured in the Second Italian War of Independence. This came in response to the appeal from Henry Dunant, an initiative which would lead to the founding of the Red Cross in 1863.[73] His son, Alexis Lombard, was a member of the administration committee at the general Hospice of Geneva for 38 years, assuming presidency of the institution 11 times between 1876 and 1900.[30] In 1910 and 1918, the banks Lombard, Odier & Cie and Hentsch & Cie were both among the first Swiss companies to secure a retirement plan for their employees through pension funds, which would be absorbed by Swiss retirement provision in 1947, which had just been established.[74] The Lombard Odier group is also active in the area of modern philanthropy. It has two different foundations; the Lombard Odier Foundation, a business foundation funded by donations from the Lombard Odier group, and the Philanthropia Foundation, targeted at donations from private banking clients.[75] The Lombard Odier Foundation distributes between 1 and 1.5 million Swiss francs a year to supporting mostly projects in areas of education and humanitarian works.[75] Since starting, the foundation has also supported the development of a Kick fund, where the aim is to support young, innovative businesses by offering equity upon start-up. The foundation has been chaired by Patrick Odier since 2016.[76] The Philanthropia foundation, created in 2008, allows clients of the bank to make donations for philanthropic work in 5 main areas: humanitarian and social, education and training, medical and scientific research, environment and sustainable development, and art and culture.[77][78] To mark its 10 year anniversary in 2018, the foundation announced that it had received donations of 116 million Swiss francs since starting, and had given away 59 million Swiss francs to some 100 organisations, 15 million of which went to organisations for cancer research and prevention.[78] The Philanthropia foundation has been chaired by Denis Pittet since 2016.[76] Branches and international presence
Switzerland
The head office of the Lombard Odier group has been located in Geneva since the bank began in 1796. The location of the headquarters has, however, moved over the centuries. In 1827, the bank Hentsch & Cie moved into the rue de la Corraterie in the building Maison Gallatin, which was built in 1708. This remains as the oldest head office of the Lombard Odier group in Geneva.[79] A few decades later, in 1858, Lombard, Odier & Cie also moved to the rue de la Corraterie, to inhabit number 11.[80] Between 1921 and 1924, the buildings belonging to the banks Hentsch & Cie and Lombard, Odier & Cie situated on the rue de la Corraterie were both rebuilt to allow for extra floors to be built.[80] In 1957, Lombard, Odier & Cie acquired the neighbouring building at 9 rue de la Corraterie. Before this space was inhabited by the bank’s staff, it was entirely rebuilt in line with the plans made by the architect Antoine de Saussure.[80] In 1985, all the administrative services for Lombard, Odier & Cie were brought together at a property located in Lancy.[80] In 1994, Lombard, Odier & Cie bought the properties at number 18 and 22 rue de la Corraterie which were in front of its premises, previously belonging to a real estate firm.[80] In this same year, after merging its staff with those from Darier & Cie, Hentsch & Cie put the building next to Lombard, Odier & Cie on the market.[80] It was this company which then purchased it, and carried out development work on it to join the buildings in 1997.[80] For 2021-2022, Lombard Odier plans to build a new head office in Bellevue, in the Canton of Geneva. The building has been designed by the architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron.[81] The building will have the capacity to welcome 2,600 employees, so as to gather together all the staff of the bank, who have, until now, been spread across six different sites within Geneva.[82] A part of the original building, la Maison Gallatin on the rue de la Corraterie will be kept, renovated, and dedicated to event organisation.[82] The Lombard Odier group also has several branches and representative offices throughout Switzerland. The bank has been particularly present in Lausanne since 1882, in Vevey and Zurich since 1989, and in Fribourg since 2008.[83] Europe
The Lombard Odier group owns several European subsidiaries which were combined into one branch which opened in Luxembourg in 2011.[84] The group of subsidiaries of the Lombard Odier in Europe were therefore considered in the legal and financial plan as branches of its Luxembourgish bank.[84] In regards to the U.K., the Lombard Odier group has had a London branch since 1973,[83] which nowadays is known for leading the asset management operations for the group. The London branch was historically dedicated to the institutional management operations for Lombard, Odier & Cie, and therefore held the corporate name Lombard, Odier International Portfolio Management Ltd (LOIPM) [86]. This firm managed in particular the portfolios of institutional investors in the U.S. and Middle East[86]. Still under British jurisdiction, the group was also present in Gibraltar from 1987. On this date, Lombard, Odier & Cie purchased the Gibraltar Private Bank.[83] In France, Lombard Odier has been established in Paris since 2001, with the opening of the Lombard Odier Gestion building, which became LODH Gestion the following year, as Lombard, Odier & Cie merged with Darier, Hentsch & Cie.[85][86] The aim of the branch was to expand into a French institutional client base, and to further the distribution of investment funds from the Lombard Odier brand.[85] In 2004, the French branch obtained a management mandate for the Pensions Reserve Fund (FRR), then partnered with ADI to launch the firm GéA in France, specialising in hedge funds.[87] The partnership ended in October 2008, and Lombard Odier launched its own office specialising in hedge funds, complementing its specialist offices for bondholder investments, asset allocation and socially responsible investing.[86][87][88] The Lombard Odier group has been just as present in Europe, specifically Brussels, since 2004, Madrid and Frankfurt since 2007, Moscow since 2008 and Milan since 2016.[83][89] The Lombard Odier group also owned a branch in Holland, which was handed over to the KBL group in 2018.[90] Americas
The Lombard Odier group has been present in North America since 1951, when Lombard, Odier & Cie opened its first international abroad, in Montreal (Canada). This branch, initially created under the name Secfin Company Ltd, now bears the name Lombard Odier Securities (Canada) Inc..[38] The group has been present In the U.S. since 1972, when Lombard, Odier & Cie launched a subsidiary named Lombard, Odier Inc.,[39] which has now become Lombard Odier Asset Management (USA) Corp. Upon launching, the only aim of Lombard, Odier Inc. was to relay information from the American side to Geneva.[39] The Lombard Odier group has also been present in Nassau (Bahamas) since 1973, and in Bermuda since 1976.[83] As for South America, the group has been present in Panama since 2013 and Montevideo since 2017.[83] Asia, Middle East, and Africa
In Asia, Lombard Odier has been active in Hong Kong since 1987, Tokyo since 1992, and Singapore since 2017. The group has also had a cooperation agreement in place with Industrial Bank in China since 2014.[91] Lastly, the group has had offices in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) since 2006, as well as Tel Aviv (Israel) and Johannesburg (South Africa) since 2017.[83] Controversy
In December 2013, Lombard Odier enrolled into the voluntary programme for open negotiations run by the US Department of Justice, to regularise cases of tax noncompliance by American taxpayers within its client base.[92] On the 31st December 2015, the Lombard Odier bank announced that it had come to an agreement with the DOJ, which consisted of a 99.8 million dollar payout to settle the disputes linked to tax noncompliance.[93] In December 2016, the Swiss Public Ministry of the Confederation launched a criminal enquiry into the activities of the private bank Lombard, Odier & Cie for suspected money laundering within the social circle of Gulnora Karimova, the daughter of the previous Uzbek president. It was claimed that the bank did not take “all reasonable and necessary organisational measures”, as the Swiss penal code requires.[94] Nevertheless, the bank states it reported the facts to the authorities[94]. Cultural references
In 1865, Jules Verne mentioned the bank Lombard, Odier & Cie in his novel From the Earth to the Moon (De la Terre à la Lune). In the novel, the bank contributed in financing the scientific expedition. Jules Verne explained that Switzerland contributed symbolically. “Subscription lists were opened in all the principal cities of the Union, with a central office at the Baltimore Bank, 9 Baltimore Street. In addition, subscriptions were received at the following banks in the different states of the two continents: [...] At Berlin, Mendelssohn. At Geneva, Lombard, Odier and Co. At Constantinople, The Ottoman Bank.”.[95] External links
References
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— Preceding unsigned comment added by Hello at LO (talk • contribs) 14:40, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
Reply 14-MAR-2019
Additional sources requested
- The edit request proposal relies too heavily on the bank's self-published sources, including but not limited to, Chaponnière's Two Centuries of Banking (24 ref tags), Sabrina's Lombard, Odier, Darier, Hentsch (18 ref tags) and M. Jean de Senarclens' various publications (24 ref tags).
- While there is a myriad of other sources provided, the text from the problematic sources is too intertwined with text from the more acceptable sources. Kindly limit the sources which are published by the subject bank in favor of more references originating from independent sources.[a]
Regards, Spintendo 15:56, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
Notes
- ↑ Sources published by the subject bank need not be removed entirely. A minimal use is preferred.
Second version
| This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest was declined. The COI editor is asked to make use of the |quote= parameter in order to expedite the review process. |
Hello Spintendo, thank you for your time and feedback, and sorry for the delay - we wanted to clear some images to put on Wikimedia Commons first.
We've tried to address your points as best as we could:
- took the number of references from JF Chaponnière from 24 to 11 only - he had privileged access to our archives for his book, which makes his contribution somewhat unique. The book is available in quite a few public libraries (meaning its not exactly an internal publication).
- Also cut down on references from Siegel et al.; this being said, most of these relate to dates of entry for associates post mid-XIXth Century. This info is normally available on the Geneva Register of Commerce's website, but we chose a bibliographical reference over a collection of links as we know for sure that the former won't need to be updated every time RC changes their platform.
- Mr. Jean de Senarclens isn't related to the bank, he was a rather notable historian for all things Geneva. We've clarified the entries to indicate they're from the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland (rather than the terse "HLS-DHS" title the automated citation tool gave). Ditto for a couple of other entries.
Thank you! Hello at LO (talk) 13:02, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
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The Lombard Odier Group is an independent Swiss banking group founded in 1796. Its head office is based in Geneva. Its operations are organised into three divisions: private banking (wealth management), asset management (mainly the management of funds for investment), and back and middle office services for other financial institutions (e.g. banking IT). At the end of 2018, the bank reported outstanding balances managed through these three divisions totalling 259 billion Swiss francs in managed assets, which in fact makes it one of the biggest players in the Swiss private banking sector[2][3]. The group offers its services to a private and institutional client base. As the oldest private bank in Geneva,[4] the group stems from the fusion of Lombard, Odier & Cie with the bank Darier, Hentsch & Cie in 2002, the latter having been initially founded in 1796 by Henri Hentsch. The firm was therefore created with the corporate name Lombard, Odier, Darier, Hentsch & Cie in 2002, which was then simplified in 2010 to become the Lombard Odier Group. Nevertheless, the firm continues to include on its official logo the names of these four founding partners. Since 2014, the bank has held the status of Limited Liability Company (LLC). The Lombard Odier Group is a legal holding company under Swiss law, bearing the name Lombard Odier Company SCmA since 2016.[5] This holding company owns all firms belonging to the group, most notably the bank Lombard, Odier & Cie SA, and Lombard Odier Asset Management (Europe) Limited in London, which forms the asset management branch of the group. Lombard Odier Investment Managers (LOIM) is the name the group is known by in the international field of asset management. The Lombard Odier Group began to establish itself internationally in 1951, by opening branches little by little in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. With its vast network of collaborators, the group has around 2,400 employees worldwide. History
The founding families
The Lombard family (from Lombardi) arrived in Geneva in 1573 from Tortorella (South Italy), where they suffered religious persecution.[6][7] The two sons of Theodoro Lombardi, César and Marc-Antoine Lombard, performed dressage and were involved in the horse trade. They received the title of burgesses of Geneva in 1589 for their services in the fight against the duke of Savoie.[6] Jean-Gédéon Lombard, a 6th generation descendent of César Lombard, became associated with the bank Hentsch, Lombard & Cie in 1798, marking the entry of the Lombard family into the field of Genevan banking.[6] The Odier family is first documented as being in Geneva circa 1714, the same time when Antoine Odier received his title as Genevan burgess.[8] The family came from Pont-en-Royans in France.[8] Members of the family held positions as politicians, doctors, artists, engineers, and then bankers. Charles Odier became associated with the bank Lombard, Bonna & Cie in 1830, which then became Lombard, Odier & Cie.[8] The Darier family arrived in Geneva in 1738 from the Dauphiné region in France.[9] Louis Darier died accidentally shortly after the birth of his son, Hugues Darier, who became a prominent figure in clockmaking and obtained the title of burgess of Geneva in 1787.[9] Jules Darier-Rey, Hugues’ grandson, became associated with the bank Chaponnière & Cie in 1873. The firm became Darier, Chaponnière & Cie in 1875, and then Darier & Cie in 1880.[9] Another of Hugues Darier’s sons, Jean-Louis Darier (1766–1825), earlier on contributed to the beginnings of the bank Ferrier, Lullin & Cie in 1795, but this organisation remains without any link to what is now Lombard Odier.[9] The Hentsch family arrived in Geneva circa 1758, while Benjamin-Gottlob Hentsch (a clergyman) emigrated from Lower-Lusatia to become a tutor in Switzerland.[10] His son, Henri Hentsch (1761–1835), founded the family bank in 1796, the starting point for what is today the Lombard Odier Group.[10] Origins of the bank (1796–1800)
From 1789, the business and finance trade in Geneva were impacted by the French Revolution.[11][12] In 1793, Henri Hentsch was arrested by the Genevan revolutionaries and temporarily exiled to Nyon, where he began a silk trading business with an associate, Edmé Mémo.[13][14][15] Despite the environment of economic difficulty and increased unemployment,[16] Henri Hentsch came back to Geneva to found the bank Henri Hentsch & Cie on 11 January 1796, at the age of 35.[12][14][17] The firm, designated as a house of "Silk and Sales", traded silk in parallel with its banking activities as a first step. This was a classic format at the time, but it quickly abandoned trading to concentrate on banking as its sole focus.[12][14] The firm allowed traders to take out loans, negotiate debts, settle bills of exchange, and more generally it allowed the trade of precious metals to be conducted, and exchange transactions to be carried out. All of this occurred at a time when several currencies were in circulation in Geneva.[14] On 26 April 1798, the Republic of Geneva was annexed by Napoleon Bonaparte’s France. Henri Hentsch’s cousin, Jean-Gédéon Lombard, then became a member of the Executive Council of the City of Geneva.[13][18] Initially a proctor of Henri Hentsch, Jean-Gédéon became his partner at the bank on 19 June 1798.[13] The firm then took the name Henri Hentsch & Lombard.[13] However, not long after this, Henri Hentsch and Jean-Gédéon Lombard came to a disagreement on the strategy they should take facing the climate of local economic downturn;[16] Jean-Gédéon Lombard wanted to limit the risks imposed by concentrating on bills of exchange operations which generated fixed commissions, while Henri Hentsch, renowned for his entrepreneurial and tenacious character, saw them moving into the international market, particularly for the finance of operations led by the First French Empire.[14] The two partners separated amicably on 22 September 1800, and the bank returned to its former name Henri Hentsch & Cie, while Jean Gédéon Lombard partnered with his brother-in-law Jean-Jacques Lullin to create the bank Lombard Lullin & Cie.[12][13] Lombard, Odier & Cie
Lombard, Lullin & Cie were heavily affected by the economic environment during the bank’s first few years. From 1800, the bankruptcy of the firm Corsanges in Lyon resulted in Jean-Gédéon Lombard losing 30,000 francs, causing Jean-Jacques Lullin to go bankrupt.[19] In spite of this, the firm was able to continue in business. Jean-Jacques Lullin left the bank on 31 December 1815, but continued as a limited partner until his death in 1837.[20] Therefore, from 1816 the firm took the name Jean-Gédéon Lombard & Cie until 1 January 1826, when Jean-Gédéon Lombard partnered with Paul-Frédéric Bonna. The bank then took the name Lombard, Bonna & Cie.[21] On 31 March 1830, Paul Frédéric Bonna left the firm to start his own bank, Bonna & Cie. The bank remained active for almost a century, before experiencing difficulties and being absorbed into Hentsch & Cie in 1920.[21] In 1830, Jean-Gédéon Lombard (aged 66), handed over the bank to his eldest son Jean-Eloi Lombard.[20] He then appointed Charles Odier as associate manager on 1 April 1830, and the bank became Lombard, Odier & Cie from then on.[6][22] Charles Odier, who was 25 years old at the time, had learned the banking profession from the firm Gabriel Odier & Cie, which was managed by his Parisian cousin, and held significant assets from the success of the company F. Courant & Odier, which he founded in 1826 in Le Havre for importing cotton from the USA.[23] Jean-Eloi Lombard dedicated himself to local business while Charles Odier concerned himself with international business, particularly thanks to contacts that he had maintained from the US.[24] Under the management of Jean-Eloi Lombard and Charles Odier, the bank financed large infrastructure works which characterised the Industrial Revolution. In 1834, Lombard, Odier & Cie co-financed the construction work at the Canal de Roanne in Digoin. This was a project which was not profitable despite its successful end result. The firm then embarked on financing railways, and from 1852 to 1872, Charles Odier acted as the administrator of the West Switzerland railways.[24] In 1834, Alexandre Lombard, the third son of Jean-Gédéon Lombard (aged 24), became a managing partner for the bank.[25] He was responsible for steering Lombard, Odier & Cie towards the American market,[25] at a time when the American frontier needed both funding and construction for facilities, roads, railways and canals. This approach, which was deemed risky due to it coinciding with the end of the American financial crisis of 1837, proved to be a winning strategy ten years later. As the political and economic environment in Europe deteriorated following the revolts of 1848, the US experienced great expansion. Alexandre Lombard prioritised financing American railway companies. The bank issued letters to its clients containing quotes for international stock, at a time when these were difficult to access.[26] In 1857, the partners from Lombard, Odier & Cie participated in creating the Geneva stock market.[27] On 1 December 1859, the only son of Charles Odier, Jacques (also known as James[28]) Odier, became a partner at the bank. This followed his trip to the US in 1854 and his marriage to Blanche Lombard in 1856, the daughter of Jean-Eloi.[29] Jacques Odier continued to grow Lombard, Odier & Cie on American soil.[29] In 1870 he joined the executive board for the Genevan branch of what would become the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas (Bank of Paris and the Netherlands).[30][31] Along with Jules Darier-Rey, in 1872 he also co-founded the Genevan life insurance company Genevoise Compagnie d'Assurance sur la Vie, which would later be chaired by his son Émile and then his grandson Edmond.[32] Alexis Lombard, the son of Jean-Eloi Lombard and brother-in-law of Jacques Odier, became a partner in 1866.[33] He became a founding member of the Chamber of Commerce of Geneva in 1872, created the Genevan Bank of loans and deposits in 1881, and became a member of the board of the Swiss National Bank after it was created in 1907.[32] Alexis Lombard and Jacques Odier remained partners at the bank for half a century, continuing to manage the firm through the First World War, while their descendants Albert Lombard and Émile Odier were conscripted into the Swiss army to guard the borders of the country.[29] Throughout the war, business was unstable for the bank; nevertheless, they made it through this time without facing any major adversities, thanks to the strength of the Swiss franc and the country’s neutrality, which allowed Swiss banks to act as places of refuge in Europe. Moreover, the bank remained primarily focused on investments in the US, which were not directly affected by the conflict. At the beginning of the 20th century, Lombard, Odier & Cie had only sixteen employees and three office staff, though this it was one of the biggest private banks in Geneva.[34] After the Great War, Émile Odier, (partner from 1890), Albert Lombard (partner from 1908), Albert’s first cousin Jean Lombard (partner from 1913), and Émile’s son Edmond Odier (partner from 1919) took over the management of the bank.[35] In 1921, Lombard, Odier & Cie assumed ownership of the bank Lenoir, Julliard & Cie which was created in 1795.[36] In 1929 and at the beginning of the 1930s, the Swiss financial sector was affected by the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, which impacted the whole of Europe. Several Swiss banks recapitalised or had to close, such as the Banque de Genève (1931) and the Comptoir d’Escompte de Genève (1934).[37] Affected by its exposure to American markets, but eager to show that it would not be brought down by difficulties, Lombard, Odier & Cie changed its statutes in 1933 to become a general partnership, which held the group of acting partners responsible with their own personal assets in case of collapse.[38] Nevertheless, the bank avoided this situation, and even absorbed Hentsch, Forget & Cie in 1934.[39] In 1937, with the death of Edmond Odier, his wife Francine Odier-Dunant became a non-executive partner of the firm so that it could keep its registered company name and its status. She kept this position until her son Marcel Odier succeeded her in 1948.[35] At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the bank Lombard, Odier & Cie had 75 collaborators, 38 of which were conscripted by the Swiss army. In 1940, Georges Lombard became a partner but was also conscripted.[40] In 1941, the bank took ownership of SAGED,[39] bringing with Jean E. Bonna (great-grandson of Frédéric Bonna) and several others as partners for the bank Lombard, Odier & Cie. As in the previous world war, the bank managed its way through this time thanks to the country’s neutrality, which meant that Swiss banks were entrusted with the role as place of refuge for foreign and national capital.[41] After the Second World War, business grew again: the bank’s archives estimate that in 1950 its private clients’ assets reached nearly a billion Swiss francs and mostly came from Switzerland, France and Belgium.[42] Under the management of Marcel Odier, the bank became international, opening its first branch in Montreal in 1951, and established its first investment funding in Canadian real estate aimed at its private clients.[32] In 1957, Thierry Barbey became a partner at the bank, and in 1961 his first cousin Yves Oltramare reached the same status. They then created a financial analysis branch in the bank, and guided Lombard, Odier & Cie towards a new venture in managing investment funds, aimed at a client base of institutional investors which had just began to emerge (pension organisations and insurance companies among others).[43] In doing so, Lombard, Odier & Cie regularly began to introduce funds in which institutional investors could invest money for them to manage. With the arrival of Jean-François Chaponnière, Alain Patry, and Fernand Oltramare as partners in 1964, then of Laurent Dominici and Pierre Keller in 1970, the bank continued developing its base of international institutional clients, and opened divisions in America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.[43] In 1983, Lombard, Odier & Cie introduced a fund called "SCI/TECH" aimed at institutional clients, in collaboration with Merrill Lynch Asset Management and Nomura Capital Management. The fund raised 835 million dollars after when it was launched, making it the biggest fundraiser in the history of investment funding at the time.[44] At the end of the 1990s, Lombard, Odier & Cie had around 800 employees, 600 of which were in Geneva, and 200 in foreign offices.[45] The firm merged with Darier, Hentsch & Cie in 2002. Darier, Hentsch & Cie
Henri Hentsch turned to financing the French Empire from the year 1800. The bank Henri Hentsch & Cie most notably organised the transfer of funds to Italy, where the Empire was expanding.[46] Thanks to its operations, Henri Hentsch had developed good relationships with the French upper class.[14] In 1812, he founded the bank Henri Hentsch, Blanc & Cie in Paris,[13] then settled in the French capital the following year, delegating the management of the Genevan bank to his three sons.[10][46] In 1826, he founded a second Parisian bank, Hentsch, Lecointe, Desarts & Cie.[47] After his death on 14 August 1835, his sons had already been for some time partners at the bank Hentsch & Cie in Geneva, but they did not take on managing the firms that their father had founded in Paris.[47] In 1854, one of Henri Hentsch’s grandsons, Jean-Alexis Henri Hentsch (aged 36) decided to leave to discover the Western United States, after twelve years as the head of the family bank in Geneva. The management of the bank was then entrusted to his brother. After a long adventure, Jean-Alexis Henri Hentsch settled down in San Francisco, at the time of the Gold rush. He opened a bank there, which he named Hentsch & Cie. The business was a success. He was named honorary consul of Switzerland in San Francisco in 1859, and then returned to Geneva in 1873, where he founded the Swiss American Bank, which would then become the parent company of the bank Hentsch & Cie in San Francisco; unrelated, however, to what is now the Lombard Odier group.[48] In 1854, Édouard Hentsch (the grandson of Henri Hentsch) resumed managing of the bank Mathieu, Hentsch & Cie in Paris.[49] He enjoyed a high-ranking career in finance, later becoming the president of the bank Comptoir national d'escompte de Paris, and then the Banque de l'Indochine, before founding the Swiss railways bank, la Banque des Chemins de fer suisses.[49] He died in 1892, bankrupted by the crash of the copper trade in 1889, which caused the bank Comptoir national d’escompte de Paris to struggle with increasingly high repayments on his personal fortune.[50] Away from this turmoil, the bank Hentsch & Cie continued its operations in Geneva and was passed down the family for several generations. In the 1950s, the bank Hentsch & Cie became a pioneer in the distribution of investment funds in Switzerland, under the management of Léonard Hentsch.[17] In 1837, Jean-François Chaponnière founded the bank Chaponnière & Cie in Geneva, which then became the bank Darier, Chaponnière & Cie in 1876, during the time when Jules Darier-Rey became a partner. This then became Darier & Cie in 1880.[11] The bank specialised in commercial business and the transport sector.[51] Before becoming a partner at the bank, in 1872 Jules Darier-Rey co-founded the first life insurance company in Geneva, La Genevoise,[52] with James Odier. As with the bank Hentsch & Cie, Darier & Cie was passed down through the family for several generations. One of the first merger projects between Hentsch & Cie and Darier & Cie was planned in 1971 by the Hentsch bank, but did not succeed then.[17] The merger finally happened on 1 January 1991, producing the bank Darier, Hentsch & Cie.[11][17] The newspaper Le Temps claimed that "those who knew the project well spoke just as much about it as an absorption of Hentsch by Darier, as they did a merger between equals".[17] Historical collaborations (1840–1933)
Throughout their independent existence, the banks Lombard, Odier & Cie, Hentsch & Cie, and Darier & Cie were led to collaborate several times. In 1840, at a time when the Industrial Revolution needed large scale funding but wasn’t able to be insured by a single financial firm, the banks Lombard, Odier & Cie, Hentsch & Cie, Candolle Turrettini & Cie, and Louis Pictet & Cie partnered together to form the 'Quatuor', which invested particularly in European railways, in the mines in the Loire Valley region of France, and even in Piedmont loans.[53] In 1872, Quatuor merged with Omnium, another private banking association in Geneva founded in 1849, regrouping Paccard, Ador & Cie, P.F. Bonna & Cie, as well as Ph. Roget & Fils. Together, these firms partnered with the new Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas to create the Finance Association of Geneva, with the aim of collecting enough capital to conduct financial operations in Switzerland and abroad.[30][37] Following this, the Financial Union of Geneva was created in 1890, coming out of the merger of the Financial Association of Geneva, and the railways bank La Banque Nouvelle des Chemins de Fer.[41] The financial union, having 12 million Swiss francs in capital when starting, consolidated twelve private banks including Hentsch & Cie, Lombard, Odier & Cie and Darier & Cie. It also played an important role in the world of Genevan finance from 1890 to 1933, in funding large infrastructure projects in Europe and the US.[37][41][54] According to the book Les grandes heures des banquiers suisses published in 1986, this collaboration between Genevan private banks would be at the heart of their sustainability. It comments that
2002–present
In 2002, the bank Lombard, Odier & Cie merged with Darier, Hentsch & Cie, producing the partnership Lombard, Odier, Darier, Hentsch & Cie.[56] The partnership allowed for one of the most significant private banks in Switzerland to be formed, totalling 20 branches abroad, 2,000 employees, and 95 billion euro in managed assets.[56] The merger was accompanied by a cost and workforce reduction plan, at a difficult time made even harsher by the fall of the stock market following the eruption of the dot-com bubble.[56] In 2006, the bank Lombard, Odier, Darier, Hentsch & Cie joined the Henokiens, an association which brings together family-owned businesses with over 200 years of history.[57] The descendants of the four historical families, Thierry Lombard, Patrick Odier, Pierre Darier and Christophe Hentsch were included in the bank’s partners until the departure of Pierre Darier in 2010. Some time later, the firm simplified its corporate name and became the Compagnie Lombard, Odier & Cie.[5] Nevertheless, the firm continued to feature the names of the four former partners on its official logo. The firm changed its legal structure on 1 January 2014, becoming a private company limited by shares, abandoning its status as a partnership, which held the partners responsible for their own personal assets indefinitely.[58] This change of status also meant that the bank was henceforth obliged to publish its half-year and annual accounts.[58] The banks Pictet, Mirabaud and Gonet simultaneously or shortly after adopted the same status, responding to the needs for transparency, regulatory demands, and limitation of risks, following the closure of the private bank Wegelin & Co as part of a dispute with the United States Department of Justice.[58][59] After losing its status as a partnership, the Lombard Odier Group considered itself obliged to leave the Association of Swiss Private Bankers, which dictated that its members hold this status.[60] On 31 December 2014, Thierry Lombard retired.[61] Then, in April 2016, his son Alexis Lombard left the firm to join the bank Landolt & Cie in Lausanne, where he formed part of the board of directors.[62] The Lombard Odier Group, which was no longer a partnership, was nonetheless able to keep its name despite the Lombard family leaving. On 31 December 2016, Anne-Marie de Weck retired, after having been named associate manager of the bank in 2002 – the first female managing partner in the private banking industry.[63] Annika Falkengren, ex-Executive Director of Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB), succeeded her a few months later, and joined as a partner of the firm in July 2017.[64] In parallel, the Lombard Odier Group announced the arrival of Denis Pittet as associate manager.[64] However, Anne-Marie de Weck continued to sit on the administrative board of the bank. On the 1st January 2019, the group had six associate managers: Patrick Odier, Christophe Hentsch, Hubert Keller, Frédéric Rochat, Denis Pittet, Annika Falkengren and Alexandre Zeller.[65][66] Operations
Wealth management
The Lombard Odier Group’s historic activity lies in wealth management for a private client base (a private banking operation). This operation covers most notably the provision of asset management advice, financial investment advice, tax advice, and estate planning. The wealth management operations are mostly overseen in Geneva, at the Lombard, Odier & Cie SA bank, as one of the companies held by the holding company of the Lombard Odier Group. According to the figures from the 2016 financial year, the operations from private banking accounted for 112 billion Swiss francs in outstanding assets from their Swiss and international clientele, with around 50% of the total outstanding amounts managed by the Lombard Odier Group.[67] Asset management
Lombard Odier is just as present in the field of asset management; it has several branches, the leading of which being the management corporation Lombard Odier Asset Management (Europe) Limited, based in London.[68] This firm makes use of the Lombard Odier Investment Managers (Lombard Odier IM) brand, which the group is known by in the international sphere of asset management.[69] This operation is mainly comprised of the management of investment funds placed into shares and bonds, which is added to by investment from hedge funds.[70] These funds are also accessible for clients of the private bank Lombard, Odier & Cie SA, as well as for an international client base of institutional investors and financial advisers outside of the Lombard Odier Group.[70] The firm is particularly active in the field of socially responsible investment, most notably in putting forward a range of impact investing capital.[71][72] Since 2015, the management company Lombard Odier IM has been just as active in the area of ETF (exchange-traded funds), following its partnership with ETF Securities.[72] The first ETFs from Lombard Odier were launched in April 2015, to replicate the results of indexes on the bond market (government bonds, enterprise bonds, and developing countries bonds).[73][74] In 2018, Lombard Odier IM was one of the first management companies to get through a settlement process managed by a private blockchain for the purchase of securities on the bond market.[75] In 2016, the bank managed 48 billion Swiss francs in its asset management branches, representing around 20% of the total outstanding balances managed by the Lombard.[67] Banking IT services
Since 2014, the Lombard Odier Group has been offering back and middle office IT services to other banking firms, through a tool dubbed "G2".[76] Most notably, this tool allowed users to manage their client base and buy and sell securities on the market.[77] Initially offered to six external institutions, "G2" turned to another dozen banks as clients.[76] The banking IT operations were trialed in 2016 at an entirely separate company, owned by the holding company for the Lombard Odier Group.[77] The bank Lombard, Odier & Cie SA is itself a client of the organisation, in the same way as the external firms that it is able to equip.[77] In 2016, this branch of the Lombard Odier Group managed 63 billion Swiss francs from third-party clients, representing around 30% of the total outstanding balances managed by the Lombard Odier Group.[67] Philanthropy
The firm’s engagement in philanthropic and humanitarian operations appeared very early into the history of the bank Lombard, Odier & Cie. Alexandre Lombard participated in the supporting committee in his time, aiming to raise money to help those injured in the Second Italian War of Independence. This came in response to the appeal from Henry Dunant, an initiative which would lead to the founding of the Red Cross in 1863.[78] His son, Alexis Lombard, was a member of the administration committee at the General Hospice of Geneva for 38 years, assuming presidency of the institution eleven times between 1876 and 1900.[33] In 1910 and 1918, the banks Lombard, Odier & Cie and Hentsch & Cie were both among the first Swiss companies to secure a retirement plan for their employees through pension funds, which would be absorbed by Swiss retirement provision in 1947, which had just been established.[79] The Lombard Odier Group is also active in the area of modern philanthropy. It has two different foundations: the Lombard Odier Foundation, a business foundation funded by donations from the Lombard Odier Group, and the Philanthropia Foundation, targeted at donations from private banking clients.[80] The Lombard Odier Foundation distributes between 1 and 1.5 million Swiss francs a year to supporting mostly projects in areas of education and humanitarian works.[80] Since starting, the foundation has also supported the development of a Kick fund, where the aim is to support young, innovative businesses by offering equity upon start-up. The foundation has been chaired by Patrick Odier since 2016.[81] The Philanthropia foundation, created in 2008, allows clients of the bank to make donations for philanthropic work in five main areas: humanitarian and social, education and training, medical and scientific research, environment and sustainable development, and art and culture.[82][83] To mark its 10th anniversary in 2018, the foundation announced that it had received donations of 116 million Swiss francs since starting, and had given away 59 million Swiss francs to some 100 organisations, 15 million of which went to organisations for cancer research and prevention.[82] The Philanthropia foundation has been chaired by Denis Pittet since 2016.[81] Branches and international presence
Switzerland
The head office of the Lombard Odier Group has been located in Geneva since the bank began in 1796. The location of the headquarters has, however, moved over the centuries. In 1858, the bank Hentsch & Cie moved into the rue de la Corraterie in Maison Gallatin, which was built in 1708.[84][85] This remains as the oldest head office of the Lombard Odier Group in Geneva. Lombard, Odier & Cie had moved to the neigbouring house the year before.[86] Between 1921 and 1924, the buildings belonging to the banks Hentsch & Cie and Lombard, Odier & Cie situated on the rue de la Corraterie were both rebuilt to allow for extra floors. In 1957, Lombard, Odier & Cie acquired the neighbouring building at 9 rue de la Corraterie. Before this space was inhabited by the bank’s staff, it was entirely rebuilt in line with the plans made by the architect Antoine de Saussure.[87] In 1990, all the administrative services for Lombard, Odier & Cie were brought together at a property located in Lancy.[88] Over the years, Lombard, Odier & Cie slowly expanded over the street, buying adjacent houses from its competitors.[89] For 2021–22, Lombard Odier plans to build a new head office in Bellevue, in the Canton of Geneva: the building has been designed by the architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron.[90] The building will have the capacity to welcome 2,600 employees, so as to gather together all the staff of the bank, who have, until now, been spread across six different sites within Geneva.[91] A part of the original building, la Maison Gallatin will be kept, renovated, and dedicated to event organisation.[91] The Lombard Odier Group also has several branches and representative offices throughout Switzerland. The bank has been particularly present in Lausanne since 1882, in Vevey and Zurich since 1989, and in Fribourg since 2008.[92] Europe
The Lombard Odier Group owns several European subsidiaries which were combined into one branch which opened in Luxembourg in 2011.[93] The group of subsidiaries of the Lombard Odier in Europe were therefore considered in the legal and financial plan as branches of its Luxembourgish bank.[93] In regard to the UK, the Lombard Odier Group has had a London branch since 1973,[94] which nowadays is known for leading the asset management operations for the group. The London branch was historically dedicated to the institutional management operations for Lombard, Odier & Cie, and therefore held the corporate name Lombard, Odier International Portfolio Management Ltd (LOIPM). This firm managed in particular the portfolios of institutional investors in the US and Middle East. Still under British jurisdiction, the group was also present in Gibraltar from 1987. On this date, Lombard, Odier & Cie purchased the Gibraltar Private Bank.[94] In France, Lombard Odier has been established in Paris since 2001, with the opening of the Lombard Odier Gestion building, which became LODH Gestion the following year, as Lombard, Odier & Cie merged with Darier, Hentsch & Cie.[95][96] The aim of the branch was to expand into a French institutional client base, and to further the distribution of investment funds from the Lombard Odier brand.[95] In 2004, the French branch obtained a management mandate for the Pensions Reserve Fund (FRR), then partnered with ADI to launch the firm GéA in France, specialising in hedge funds.[97] The partnership ended in October 2008, and Lombard Odier launched its own office specialising in hedge funds, complementing its specialist offices for bondholder investments, asset allocation and socially responsible investing.[97] The Lombard Odier Group has been just as present in Europe, specifically Brussels, since 2004, Madrid and Frankfurt since 2007, Moscow since 2008 and Milan since 2016.[94][98] The Lombard Odier Group also owned a branch in Holland, which was handed over to the KBL Group in 2018.[99] Americas
The Lombard Odier Group has been present in North America since 1951, when Lombard, Odier & Cie opened its first international abroad, in Montreal, Canada. This branch, initially created under the name Secfin Company Ltd, now bears the name Lombard Odier Securities (Canada) Inc..[32] The group has been present In the US since 1972, when Lombard, Odier & Cie launched a subsidiary named Lombard, Odier Inc., which has now become Lombard Odier Asset Management (USA) Corp. Upon launching, the only aim of Lombard, Odier Inc. was to relay information from the American side to Geneva, but quickly expanded to secure seats at the Boston (1969) and New York Stock Exchanges (1979).[100] The Lombard Odier Group has also been present in Bermuda since 1972 and Nassau since 1979.[100][101] As for South America, the group has been present in Panama since 2013 and Montevideo since 2017.[94] Asia, Middle East, and Africa
In Asia, Lombard Odier has been active in Hong Kong since 1987, Tokyo since 1992, and Singapore since 2017. The group has also had a cooperation agreement in place with Industrial Bank in China since 2014.[102] Lastly, the group has had offices in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) since 2006, as well as Tel Aviv (Israel) and Johannesburg (South Africa) since 2017.[94] Controversy
In December 2013, Lombard Odier enrolled into the voluntary programme for open negotiations run by the United States Department of Justice, to regularise cases of tax noncompliance by American taxpayers within its client base.[103] On 31 December 2015, the Lombard Odier bank announced that it had come to an agreement with the DOJ, which consisted of a 99.8 million dollar payout to settle the disputes linked to tax noncompliance.[104] In December 2016, the Swiss Public Ministry launched a criminal enquiry into the activities of the private bank Lombard, Odier & Cie for suspected money laundering within the social circle of Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of the former Uzbek president. It was claimed that the bank did not take "all reasonable and necessary organisational measures", as the Swiss penal code requires.[105] Nevertheless, the bank states it reported the facts to the authorities.[105] Cultural references
In 1865, Jules Verne mentioned the bank Lombard, Odier & Cie in his novel From the Earth to the Moon. In the novel, the bank collected donations to finance the scientific expedition. "Subscription lists were opened in all the principal cities of the Union, with a central office at the Baltimore Bank, 9 Baltimore Street. In addition, subscriptions were received at the following banks in the different states of the two continents: [...] At Berlin, Mendelssohn. At Geneva, Lombard, Odier and Co. At Constantinople, The Ottoman Bank.".[106] External links
References
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Reply 25-MAY-2019
- To assist in this review, I would ask that you utilize the
|quote=parameter in all instances, taking care to copy the quoted text from the source which verifies each individual claim statement and place it into the reference template under the quote parameter (be it in English, or in French).[a] - In instances where one reference has several ref notes, this will necessitate branching each ref note individually.
- The quoted text will remain in the references only for the duration of the review, whereupon it may be deleted before being placed into the article (in those sections which are approved).[b]
- Should assistance be required, the COI editor is reminded that the WikiProject Switzerland ostensibly stands ready to help with the development of articles covering the Confederation and its related topics.
Regards, Spintendo 04:40, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
Notes
- ↑ The reasoning behind this request is thus: the current edit request requires reviewing no less than 104 separate references. Much time would be saved if those references already included the quoted text — which the reviewer could then look out for whilst verifying each individual reference. The alternative is for the COI edit request reviewer to read 104 separate references in their entirety just to locate the text in question, which on its face does not appear to be an altogether efficient use of time.
- ↑ The entire quoted text need not be inserted under the parameter. Only a portion significant enough so that the reviewer may task their own browser with finding it, via Ctrl+F.
- Hello user:Spintendo, thank you again for your reply, and apologies for the weird formatting in our previous post (it should be corrected now). We are not sure however that we understand it correctly. Are you asking us to give the original quote or text extract for each and every reference we have been using throughout the text (which would have to be in French or German), or is there any specific point which you would like us to clarify with a relevant quote?
- In any case, we don't want to take up too much of your time and will follow your advice to ask people on the Swiss project to review our proposed changes. Thank you very much again! Hello at LO (talk) 12:02, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
Hello -- I have reviewed the draft, and it is clearly superior to the article as it stands at the moment. Therefore I support the switch to the new version. The formatting nitpicks can easily be addressed once the page is live, it's not like the current version has "good article" status or anything. --dab (𒁳) 12:27, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
- My own review was a bit cursory, so far, but I agree with that. Maybe the clause "which in fact makes it one of the biggest players in the Swiss financial sector" (in the lede) should be a bit less vague and be referenced (maybe it has to be this vague, I do not understand banking at all. I was asked to take a look because I'm a member of Wikipedia:CH—something I'd almost forgotten about :-) ---Sluzzelin talk 20:26, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
- @Sluzzelin - thanks for the note, I've clarified "financial" to "private banking and added two references (one from FT, the other an industry ranking). Thanks to Cote d'Azur for their edits. I'm reopening an edit request, so that we can hopefully move on. Hello at LO (talk) 16:12, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
Edit request
 | This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered. |
The text above and the one one my sandbox are identical and have been reviewed by three separate editors from the Wiki Project Switzerland, I think it is fair to say there is agreement that it is ready to replace the existing article. Thanks, Hello at LO (talk) 16:12, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
- Allow me to reiterate that I would be happy to review and implement these changes, but I'm afraid that given the large number of sources, I'll have to ask that the COI editor activate the
|quote=parameter in order to assist in verification (especially in instances where the source is a language which is not my own). The other reviewing editors who already agree with the draft version are of course invited to implement it themselves, if they feel that these changes are acceptable. Regards, Spintendo 16:35, 7 August 2019 (UTC)- There is more than a hundred references, all of them from public sources. I have seen no indication that you speak French nor German, so retrieving and translating all of these would take an extraordinary amount of time just on the assumption that you do not trust the quality of our work (which, seeing ourselves as honest professionals, feels a bit condescending to be frank, though I understand where you may be coming from if you deal with so many requests). I also haven't seen that
|quote=being used to such an extent anywhere: I would rather suggest that you point at specific references you'd like us to clarify/quote, otherwise I would be happy to ask for a second opinion from someone dealing with Edit requests if this is normal practice to have people jump through so many hoops in order to improve an article. Honestly we'd rather have you to be happy with the overall quality - are you not? Best, Hello at LO (talk) 06:51, 8 August 2019 (UTC)- I assure you this request is made only to ensure the quality of the implemented text. It's not that I don't trust that quality, but it's been my experience that articles which have multiple sets of critical eyes set upon them are superior to articles which are only appraised critically by one set of eyes. I understand this represents an increased amount of work for the COI editor to do, but what I'm asking for is not impossible work for an archivist to perform — especially one experienced in producing quality work such as yourself — and ultimately is necessary to secure my volunteer time implementing this request. The request remains open at this time for other editors to review as they see fit. Regards, Spintendo 02:06, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
- There is more than a hundred references, all of them from public sources. I have seen no indication that you speak French nor German, so retrieving and translating all of these would take an extraordinary amount of time just on the assumption that you do not trust the quality of our work (which, seeing ourselves as honest professionals, feels a bit condescending to be frank, though I understand where you may be coming from if you deal with so many requests). I also haven't seen that
- @Spintendo:
Not done edit request is unclear. SportsFan007 (talk) 20:50, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
- Hi SportsFan, lets go ahead and give this edit request a bit more time to receive a review if possible. I had earlier promised the COI editor that it would remain open for other editors to decide if the changes could be implemented, so it would be helpful for them if we could leave the template open so that they could have a look. Thanks, appreciate it! Regards, Spintendo 02:51, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
- @Spintendo:
Spintendo, let me say that I find your standards a little bit excessive for an article that isn't protected, and is tagged for cleanup. User:Hello at LO is doing everything right, they openly declare their COI, they make a good effort to write within project guidelines, and they have shown great courtesy and patience. Their draft is far better than most additions we get from new editors. It is especially commendable for a "COI editor" to included a neutrally worded "controversy" section on their own accord.
I have no COI whatsoever, and I take it upon myself to implement the suggestion in my own name. I have read through all of it and I implemented minor copyedits to the draft. Please treat the edit for what it is worth as a COI-free contribution at this point. I did make several edits for tone, and did place a few inline tags requesting clarification. --dab (𒁳) 09:02, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
- I appreciate your input and your availability to implement these edits, which are very much appreciated. As for my requirements vis a vis the
|quote=parameter, Wikipedia is WP:NOTCOMPULSORY — meaning I am no more compelled to alter my requirements[a] for volunteering my time to implement these edits than the COI editor is compelled to fulfill them.
- It would seem then, that both of our stances were necessary in order to get the article's work done. I'm guessing that's because you might not have offered to implement these changes yourself had you not felt (mistakenly) that the COI editor was being asked to do too much work.[b] If that's true, then my sticking point regarding the
|quote=parameter along with the COI editor's point of not fulfilling them[c] have both unintentionally helped to spur action which, in the end, is a good thing. Again, I appreciate very much the time you're willing to spend working on this request. Regards, Spintendo 01:28, 19 August 2019 (UTC)- Hello everyone, and thank to all for implementing the new text. I will look into the clarification/references that have been requested and if you gentlemen are okay with it I'll simply add the references directly into the article - I don't want to waste any more of your time than is necessary, hopefully you've got your own articles to edit. We will also try again to upload some of our archives on Commons (mostly XIXth century charts, maps and portraits: our first try failed, but I suspect it was because of ours being a brand new account. If we decide to add illustrations to the text I may ping some of you for advice. Best regards, Hello at LO (talk) 12:25, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
- Here are our comments/corrections:
- Ref: 25: The West-Switzerland railway company was indeed incorporated in Lausanne on 23 November 1852, as attested in the ‘’Journal de Genève”. There is also a 1853 publication regarding stock dividends and equity swap that mentions Lombard Odier & Cie. I guess the current article on the Compagnie (or its source) is inaccurate (it indicates 1854 as a date of incorporation).
- Ref 67: the exact quote is, indeed, “Lombard Odier indicates that the facts had been brought to the attention of the Money Laundering Communications Bureau by the bank itself, triggering the investigations.”
- These “facts” are presumably described in the following paragraph and relate to suspected money laundering activities in relations with the Uzbek telecom market (“Les soupçons de blanchiment d'argent sont liés au marché des télécommunications en Ouzbékistan”). I’ve clarified to “The bank stated that it had reported these money laundering activities to the authorities.
- Ref 107: “the foundation announced that it had received a total sum of donations totalling CHF 116 million, and had given away CHF 59 million to some 100 organisations” is marked as unclear (meaning that CHF 57 mio are missing from the equation).
- The source’s next line indicates that the Foundation gives away 10% of its principal yearly (“Nous redistribuons en moyenne 10% de notre capital chaque année”). This is the way foundations work: see, e.g., the Nobel Foundation, which the corresponding article rightfully describes as a fund. The principal is normally kept and what is being given away are dividends. I have rephrased to make this clearer and replaced it with [The Foundation] had given away every year an average of 10% of its assets to some 100 organisations (for a total of CHF 59 million).
- We have also populated the commons:category:Lombard Odier with items that are now in the public domain. Hello at LO (talk) 16:05, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
- Hello everyone, and thank to all for implementing the new text. I will look into the clarification/references that have been requested and if you gentlemen are okay with it I'll simply add the references directly into the article - I don't want to waste any more of your time than is necessary, hopefully you've got your own articles to edit. We will also try again to upload some of our archives on Commons (mostly XIXth century charts, maps and portraits: our first try failed, but I suspect it was because of ours being a brand new account. If we decide to add illustrations to the text I may ping some of you for advice. Best regards, Hello at LO (talk) 12:25, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
Notes
- ↑ In addition to providing a second pair of eyes to act as a quality check on the submissions, asking for the text to be placed in the quote parameter also helps to accomplish two of the main tasks described for COI edit request reviewers: checking for copyrighted text and the using of a source's materials out of context.[1]
- ↑ While a request was made by the COI editor for assistance on July 23, an offer to implement these changes was not made until 2 weeks later after they described the "hundreds" of quotes being asked for.
- ↑ With respect to the quotes themselves: The information that the COI editor gathered together to present in the edit request ostensibly used these very same sources that were then presented in the request. Sources which, presumably, had just recently been gathered during the drafting stages of the request. The argument that somehow these sources had suddenly become unavailable and thus could not be consulted once again in order to be placed in the quote parameter so recently after being gathered the first time is difficult to believe.
References
- ↑ "Template:Request edit/Instructions". Wikipedia. 15 September 2018.
Instructions for reviewers—#2: Please check the suggested content for copying from existing sources as an initial task – copyright infringement is a pervasive problem and it is not only important that we don't host such material, but it often leads to significant additional work when not caught early. Instructions for reviewers—#4: Be on the look-out for cherry-picking, for the omission of material or sources, for the misrepresentation of a source's tone, and for the use of source material out of context.