Bache was created in 1879 when Jules Bache's uncle founded Leopold Cahn & Co. as a brokerage and investment banking company. In 1880, Jules Bache joined his uncle's company, which in the following 10 years opened a second office in New York City and established a branch in Albany, New York. In 1892, Leopold Cahn & Co. was renamed J.S. Bache & Co. By 1896, the company had established itself as a leader on Wall Street and had opened eight additional branches throughout the country, and developed correspondent relationships in London and Paris. With seats on the New York Stock Exchange, the New York Cotton Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade, and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, Bache was a leading participant in the financial and commodities markets.
During World War I, J.S. Bache & Co.'s commodities expertise was called upon for the active large-scale purchase of strategic materials and commodities for American, British and French forces. It also joined other Wall Street houses in selling Liberty bonds to finance the war effort. In the 1920s, the firm helped finance the New York City subway and played a key role in the founding and early growth of the Chrysler Corporation. Since the firm did not have any of its capital invested in the stock market and had no investment trusts to protect, after the stock market crash of 1929, it was able to expand, acquiring branches from other brokers.
In the 1930s, J.S. Bache & Co. continued to acquire memberships on additional exchanges and add new branches. Correspondent relationships were established in Amsterdam, Berlin and Tokyo to support its flourishing commodities business. World War II forced the closing of all of its international branches with the exception of London. During this time, the firm sold government bonds to support the war effort, and was among the first to employ women to fill jobs vacated by male employees in the military. In addition, it introduced the first profit-sharing plan in Wall Street history.
In 1944, Jules Bache died. He was succeeded by Harold Bache, and the firm's name was changed to Bache & Co. In 1947, the firm sponsored the first financial news program ever to appear on television and was the first brokerage to provide quotations and financial news bulletins to ships at sea, the Armed Forces Radio, and the Voice of America.
The firm continued to expand in the 1950s and 1960s and became a public company in 1971. Bache & Co. completed a number of acquisitions in the 1970s, including Halsey, Stuart & Co., Shield Model Roland, and Harrison & Co., ultimately forming the holding company Bache Group.
In 1981, Bache & Co. was acquired by Prudential Financial, Inc. (PFI)* for $385 million. In 2003, PFI combined its retail brokerage business with that of Wachovia to form a joint venture, Wachovia Securities LLC. Underscoring the strength of the commodities and financial derivatives businesses, these businesses were retained as a discrete unit of PFI.
In 2011, Prudential Bache was acquired by Jefferies Group, Inc. for $430 million and was renamed Jefferies Bache. Founded nearly 50 years ago, Jefferies Group, Inc. is a highly respected, publicly traded global securities and investment banking firm with a market capitalization of $5 billion, $40 billion in assets and over 3,000 employees world-wide. Jefferies was named one of the World’s Most Admired Companies® by Fortune magazine in the publication’s 2011 ranking of Most Admired Companies.
