User:Heatherer/Bank of New York Mellon History

Bank of New York


The Bank of New York was founded by Alexander Hamilton on June 9, 1784, in the old Walton Mansion in New York City. Due to local politics, it wasn't able to procure a charter until 1791.

The bank provided the United States government its first loan in 1789. The loan was orchestrated by Hamilton, then Secretary of the Treasury, and it paid the salaries of United States Congress members and President George Washington. The Bank of New York was the first company to be traded on the New York Stock Exchange when it first opened in 1792.

During the 1800s, the bank was known for its conservative lending practices that allowed it to weather financial crises. It was involved in the funding of the Morris and Erie canals, and steamboat companies. The bank helped finance both the War of 1812 and the Union Army during the American Civil War. Following the Civil War, the bank loaned money to many major infrastructure projects, including utilities, railroads, and the New York City Subway.

Through the early 1900s, the Bank of New York continued to expand and prosper. In July 1922, the bank merged with the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company. The bank continued to profit and pay dividends throughout the Great Depression, and its total deposits increased during the decade. In 1948, the Bank again merged, this time with the Fifth Avenue Bank, which was followed by a merger in 1966 with the Empire Trust Company. The bank's holding company was created in 1969.

In 1988, the Bank of New York merged with Irving Bank Corporation. From 1993 to 1998, the bank made 33 acquisitions, including acquiring JP Morgan’s Global Custody Business in 1995. Ivy Asset Management was acquired in 2000, and the bank acquired Pershing LLC, the United States' second-largest trade clearinghouse, in 2003. In 2006, the Bank of New York traded its retail banking and regional middle-market businesses for J.P. Morgan Chase's corporate trust assets. The deal signaled the bank's exit from retail banking.

Mellon Financial
Mellon Financial was founded as T. Mellon & Sons' Bank in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1869 by retired judge Thomas Mellon and his sons Andrew W. Mellon and Richard B. Mellon. The bank invested in and helped found numerous industrial firms in the late 1800s and early 1900s including Alcoa, Westinghouse, Gulf Oil, General Motors and Bethlehem Steel. Both Gulf Oil and Alcoa are, according to the financial media, considered to be T. Mellon & Sons' most successful financial investments.

In 1902, T. Mellon & Sons' name was changed to the Mellon National Bank. The firm merged with the Union Trust Company, a business founded by Andrew Mellon, in 1946. The newly formed organization resulting from the merger was named the Mellon National Bank and Trust Company, and was Pittsburgh's first US$1 billion bank.

The bank formed the first dedicated family office in the United States in 1971. A reorganization in 1972 led to the bank's name changing to Mellon Bank, N.A. and the formation of a holding company, Mellon National Corporation.

Mellon Bank acquired multiple banks and financial institutions in Pennsylvania during the 1980s and 1990s. In 1992, Mellon acquired 54 branch offices of Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, the first savings bank in the United States, founded in 1819.

In 1993, Mellon acquired The Boston Company from American Express and AFCO Credit Corporation from The Continental Corporation. The following year, Mellon merged with the Dreyfus Corporation, bringing its mutual funds under its umbrella. In 1999, Mellon Bank Corporation became Mellon Financial Corporation. Two years later, it exited the retail banking business by selling its assets and retail bank branches to Citizens Financial Group.

Merger
On December 4, 2006, the Bank of New York and Mellon Financial Corporation announced they would merge. The merger created the world's largest securities servicing company and one of the largest asset management firms by combining Mellon’s wealth-management business and the Bank of New York’s asset-servicing and short-term-lending specialties.

The deal was valued at $16.5 billion and under its terms, the Bank of New York's shareholders received 0.9434 shares in the new company for each share of the Bank of New York that they owned, while Mellon Financial shareholders received 1 share in the new company for each Mellon share they owned. The Bank of New York and Mellon Financial entered into mutual stock option agreements for 19.9 percent of the issuer's outstanding common stock. The merger was finalized on July 1, 2007. The company's principal office of business at the One Wall Street office previously held by the Bank of New York. The full name of the company became The Bank of New York Mellon Corp., with the BNY Mellon brand name being used for most lines of business.

Recent history
In October 2008, the U.S. Treasury named BNY Mellon the master custodian of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailout fund during the financial crisis of 2007 to 2010. BNY Mellon won the assignment, which included handling accounting and record-keeping for the program, through a bidding process. In November 2008, the company announced that it would lay-off 1,800 employees, or 4 percent of its global workforce, due to the financial crisis. According to the results of a February 2009 stress test conducted by federal regulators, BNY Mellon was one of only three banks that could withstand a worsening economic situation. The company received $3 billion from TARP, which it paid back in full in June 2009, along with US$136 million to buy back warrants from the Treasury in August 2009.

Also in August 2009, BNY Mellon purchased Insight Investment, a management business for external funds, from Lloyds Banking Group. The company acquired PNC Financial Services' Global Investment Servicing Inc. in July 2010 and Talon Asset Management's wealth management business in 2011.

By 2013, the company's capital had steadily risen from the financial crisis. In the results of the Federal Reserve's Dodd-Frank stress test in 2013, the bank was least affected by hypothetical extreme economic scenarios among banks tested. It was also a top performer on the same test in 2014.

BNY Mellon began a major branding campaign in 2013 to increase awareness of the company. It adopted the slogan "The Investments Company for the World" and changed its logo.

In May 2014, BNY Mellon agreed to sell the building housing its headquarters to increase efficiency. The company announced plans to move its headquarters to lower Manhattan in 2015, leasing space at Brookfield Place. In June 2014, the company combined its global markets, global collateral services and prime services to create the new Markets Group. Kurt Woetzel was named the group's president. The company expanded its Hong Kong office in October 2014 as part of the company's plans to grow its wealth management business. It opened the BNY Mellon Innovation Center, an office focused on emerging technologies, big data, digital and cloud-based projects, in Palo Alto in November 2014.