Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Charles E. Merrill (American Banker)

Charles Edward Merrill (1885–1956) was an American investment banker, stockbroker, and philanthropist. The co-founder of Merrill, Lynch & Co. in 1914, he designed his business around middle-class investors, not stock exchange insiders. Merrill was also the father of poet James Merrill.

Born in Green Cove Springs, Florida, Merrill attended Amherst College and the University of Michigan Law School. He worked as a reporter, baseball player, and businessman at George H. Burr & Company and Eastman Dillon & Co. before launching his own investment-banking firm, Merrill, Lynch & Company, in 1914.

Merrill helped chain stores dominate retailing and handled underwriting for at least 25 retail stores. He was the first established broker to predict the Great Crash of 1929 and the only one that liquidated his firm’s stock portfolio. In 1930, Merrill- Lynch quit the brokerage field and concentrated instead on underwriting and investment banking. In 1940 it restarted offering brokerage services, and Merrill led the investment industry in “Bringing Wall Street to Main Street” and attracting small investors to the stock market. At his death, his firm had 115 offices and 400,000 clients and it was the country’s largest brokerage firm.

Merrill donated 95 percent of his $25 million estate to churches, hospitals, and colleges. He also created the Merrill Foundation for the Advancement of Investment Knowledge in 1945.

Biographies include Edwin Perkins’s Wall Street to Main Street: Charles Merrill and Middle-Class Investors (1999) and Donald Regan’s The Merrill Lynch Story (1981.)

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Charles E. Merrill

Get the best people and train them well.
Charles E. Merrill
Topics: Business

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