Company
AbsorbedHope & Co.
Amsterdam · Since 1762
The house lasted into the twentieth century, and its business passed into the line that became part of ABN AMRO.
Hope & Co. was founded in Amsterdam in 1762 by members of a Scottish family already in the trade. It became the leading merchant bank of the city: accepting bills, lending to governments, and placing loans with Dutch investors who wanted a return without owning a ship.
When the French occupied Amsterdam, the house moved much of its business to London and worked closely with the Barings. A merchant bank of this kind did not make anything. It made a credit good in more than one country, which in wartime is a scarce good.
The partners and the clerks
A handful of partners decided which sovereign could borrow. A larger room of clerks copied letters, tracked acceptances, and kept the correspondence that was the bank's real asset. The skill was knowing who would pay. The labor was the letter book. Young men joined as clerks in the hope of a partnership they would probably not get, which is the employment structure of every private bank in this catalogue.
Absorbed, not ruined
Unlike Barings, Hope did not end in a scandal. It continued as an Amsterdam house into the twentieth century and was eventually folded into the mergers that produced MeesPierson and then ABN AMRO. There is no Hope & Co. counter a client can walk up to. The business of cross-border acceptance, which it helped invent, is now a department inside much larger banks.
The work it organized
- Partner
- Correspondence clerk
- Bill broker
- Courier
On the timeline
Related
- The Rothschild housesActive
- Baring BrothersDissolved