Originally created as Oppenheimer & Company and named for German-American investment broker Max E. Oppenheimer (c. 1899–1964), a Jewish refugee from the Nazis who advised the Synagogue Council of America and worked at a New Hampshire real estate firm, a Bay Area savings and loan association, and Lehman Brothers,[3] Oppenheimer Holdings was founded in 1950 when a partnership was created to act as a broker-dealer and manage related financial services for large institutional clients.[4] While the 1960s and 1970s was a time of great prosperity for the company, the origins of the firm trace back to 1881. After re-configuring operations in 1975, Oppenheimer & Co. formed three operating subsidiaries:
Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., a retail brokerage firm
Oppenheimer Capital Corporation, an institutional investment manager
Oppenheimer Management Corp. (subsequently spun off into OppenheimerFunds, a mutual fund business,[5] which was later acquired by Invesco)
In the 1980s, OpCo founding partners began looking for a buyer. Mercantile House Holdings, PLC, a publicly owned British corporation, made an offer in 1982, which was accepted and closed a year later.[6] In 1986, a majority interest was bought in Oppenheimer & Co. and Oppenheimer Capital by the firm's management, chairman and CEO Stephen Robert and president Nathan Gantcher, along with a small group of their colleagues from Mercantile, for $150 million. A year later, British & Commonwealth Holdings, PLC, acquired Mercantile. The 1990s brought another separation of the original firm when Oppenheimer Capital's senior personnel acquired a majority interest in the subsidiary and separated from OpCo.
In 1995, Robert and Gantcher, who controlled about 40 percent of OpCo's equity, became eager to locate additional capital to grow their firm. At first, OpCo explored options of forming a possible alliance with ING Groep NV that eventually fell through. Carrying on with this goal, management set out to merge with a bulge bracket bank that had access to the foreign markets.
Robert and Gantcher entertained offers from the second-largest private German financial institution and retail bank, Bayerische Vereinsbank.[7] On May 8, 1997, The Wall Street Journal announced that Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank Corp. was in talks to buy Oppenheimer & Co. for about $500 million in cash, stock, and options. Despite that, according to the article's source, PNC and Oppenheimer hadn't arrived at a fixed price and that chatter could break the formal agreement.[8] 13 days following the announcement, the Bloomberg News desk announced that for the third time in two years, OpCo had been abandoned by a prospective buyer.[9] Two months later, it was announced that CIBC wanted to expand its brokerage business and was interested in Oppenheimer.[10]
CIBC Oppenheimer
In 1997, CIBC Wood Gundy acquired Oppenheimer Holdings for $525 million and paid over for the next three years and included $175 million in order to retain the loyalty of key Oppenheimer executives who were not shareholders in the closely held private firm.[10] When the deal was closed, the firm's name was changed to CIBC Oppenheimer Holdings.[11] In 2003, CIBC made the decision to sell Oppenheimer's retail brokerage business and name for $257 million to Fahnestock Viner Holdings, which subsequently changed its name to Oppenheimer.[12]
Fahnestock Viner Holdings
Fahnestock Viner traces its lineage back to Harris C. Fahnestock, an investment banker who was a founding member of one of Citigroup's predecessors, the First National Bank of New York. In 1881, Harris' son William formed his own investment bank at Two Wall Street, Fahnestock & Co.,[13] which expanded through the decades and was eventually acquired in 1988 by E.A. Viner Holdings, Ltd. The new company, Fahnestock Viner Holdings, would eventually change its name in 2003 upon the acquisition of CIBC Oppenheimer's retail brokerage business (the Private Client and U.S. Asset Management Divisions).[14][15]
In 2001, prior to acquiring Oppenheimer, Fahnestock acquired another investment bank, Josephthal & Co. Inc.[16]
Edward A. Viner Holdings, which was Toronto-based company, was managed by Albert “Bud” Lowenthal when it acquired Fahnestock for $7.3 million.[17]: 63
CIBC World Markets
On November 4, 2007, CIBC announced that it agreed to sell to Oppenheimer & Co. its American domestic investment banking, equities, leveraged finance, and related debt capital markets businesses. The transaction also included CIBC's Israeli investment banking and equities business, and certain parts of other U.S. capital markets-related businesses located in the UK and Asia.[18] The acquired businesses by Oppenheimer had over 700 employees and annual revenue of 400 million. According to the agreement, Oppenheimer borrowed $100 million from CIBC in the form of a subordinated debt. Additionally, CIBC agreed to provide an initial $1.5 billion lending, to the entity for financing the syndicated loans for American middle-market companies. CIBC President and Chief Executive Gerry McCaughey said, "It [transaction] will permit CIBC to redeploy capital over time to further support the continued growth of our strong and profitable U.S. and international operations, as well as our core Canadian businesses."[19] The deal was closed on January 14, 2008.[20]
Settlements with US regulators
In January 2015, Oppenheimer & Co. paid $20 million in civil settlements with U.S. regulators, who had alleged that the group had improperly sold penny stocks and did not take adequate steps to fight money laundering.[21]
Ownership
As of 2020, the company has Class A non-voting stock which is publicly traded, while 98% of the Class B voting stock is owned by its chairman Albert G. Lowenthal.[22]
Albert Lowenthal became CEO of predecessor company Edward A. Viner Holdings (E.A. Viner) by buying a controlling stake in 1985 and used that company to purchase various other companies, continuing to hold the position of CEO as of 2024[update]. He began his career at Cowen & Co. in 1967.[23]
