Salomon Brothers
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A long time ago, in a small town in Germany,[1] there was a shoemaker, Salomon was his name...
The English brother
there was an English Salomon Brother; Basil. He made boots in Whitechapel. Being a litigious, type, he established the legal concept of corporate personality in Salomon v Salomon & Co Ltd [1896] UKHL 1, when he sued his corporate self and lost. Nothing to do with the modern ski and hiking boot manufacturer as best we can determine — that’s the Frenchie mentioned below.
The American Brothers
His brothers Hank and Chip went to America and diversified into investment banking, invented swaps, nearly blew up the financial world on a number of occasions and eventually succumbed to the dreary lukewarm entropy that is our collective fate, being acquired in 1997 by Travelers Group, which was then aquired by Citigroup in early 1998.
The French Brother
There was another Salomon brother, Georges, also more inclined to footwear than investment banking. He went to France and made badass skis[2], ironically becoming a good client of the investment banking fraternity by being bought by Adidas in 1997 for USD1bn.
See also
References
- ↑ In fact none of the Salomon Brothers seem to have come from, or gone to, Germany.
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salomon_Group.