The ''Caisse Générale de Reports et de Dépôts'' (CGRD, sometimes CGR&D) was a bank headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. Founded in 1874, its business was reorganized in 1940 under the new name ''Banque de Reports et de Dépôts'' (BRD). It was eventually absorbed in 1953 by the

Banque Lambert Bank Brussels Lambert (BBL, french: Banque Bruxelles Lambert) was a Belgian bank that was created through merger in 1975 and became part of ING Group in 1998. It provided retail and commercial banking services to individuals and businesses in Belgi ...

Overview

The CGRD was established in 1874 and initially specialized in collateral loans to stockbrokers. ( refers to bank lending that enables leveraged securities trading.) In the early 20th century, the CGRD commissioned a prominent head office building in the downtown banking district of Brussels, designed by architect

Paul Saintenoy Paul Saintenoy (19 June 1862 – 18 July 1952) was a Belgian architect, teacher, architectural historian, and writer. Family ] Born in 1862 in Ixelles, a municipality of Brussels, Belgium, Saintenoy was the son of the architect Gustave Sainte ...

and completed in 1911. In 1935, Belgian banker , a former general manager of the

Banque d'Outremer The Banque d'Outremer (), initially known as the Compagnie Internationale pour le Commerce et l'Industrie (CICI) was a Belgian financial institution, established in 1899 in the context of the exploitation of the Congo Free State, and eventually m ...

, became the CGRD's controlling shareholder by acquiring an equity stake previously held by the Société Générale de Belgique as the latter spun off most of its banking operations as the Générale de Banque. In 1939, a year after Fabri's death, the bank fell into financial distress, in a context of generally adverse conditions in Belgium and specifically linked with the failure of the Amsterdam branch of Mendelssohn & Co., in which Fabri had made significant investments. Depositors were kept unharmed but the CGRD was liquidated In early 1940, while its business was transferred to a newly created entity, the Banque de Reports et de Dépôts. The new shareholders, namely the Société Générale de Belgique, Banque de Bruxelles, and Société Belge de Banque, together received 40 percent of the new entity's equity, while the former CGRD shareholders, including the Fabri family, retained 60 percent. In 1947, the BRD created an affiliate in the Belgian Congo, the

Société Congolaise de Banque The ''Société Congolaise de Banque'' (also known as Socobanque), known from 1970 successively as ''Banque du Peuple'' (), ''Banque Zaïroise du Commerce Extérieur'' (), and eventually ''Banque Congolaise du Commerce Extérieur'' (), was a sign ...

. In 1953, the investment company Cofinindus, controlled by and a shareholder of the Banque de Bruxelles, purchased the Fabri family’s equity stake of 33 percent in an attempt to acquire the BRD. That bid was thwarted by the Belgian authorities, however, out of competition policy concerns. Instead, the BRD was taken over by the

, providing a basis for the latter's dynamic expansion in subsequent years.

Notes

Defunct banks of Belgium {{bank-stub

Overview

See also

Notes