William Salomon (1914-2014) was an American businessman who served as managing partner of

Salomon Brothers Salomon Brothers, Inc., was an American multinational bulge bracket investment bank headquartered in New York. It was one of the five largest investment banking enterprises in the United States and the most profitable firm on Wall Street durin ...

Biography

Salomon was born to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, the son of Percy Salomon who co-founded

with his brothers, Arthur and Herbert. William joined the firm aged 19 in 1933, soon after the

Wall Street crash The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange colla ...

. He became a managing partner in 1963 and turned the firm into one of the "fearsome foursome that took on the elite white shoe banks such as

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...

and

First Boston : ''For the company after its acquisition by Credit Suisse, see Credit Suisse First Boston (known as CSFB and CS First Boston)'' The First Boston Corporation was a New York-based bulge bracket investment bank, founded in 1932 and acquired by Cred ...

". He retired in 1978, passing the leadership to John Gutfreund, but regretted it when the latter led the partners into selling the firm for $554 million in 1981 to

Phibro Phibro is a global low-carbon commodity company, focused on renewable asstets' development, acquisitions, optimizations and related contract structuring. Phibro's strategy is based on a proven track record of combining market insight, disciplin ...

, a commodities trading house. He had prized the discipline of partnership, creating a structure in which partners were paid salaries and bonuses but had to retain 95 per cent of their capital in the business until they left.

Personal life

In 1937, Salomon married Virginia Foster; they had two children, Dr. Peter F. Salomon and Susan Salomon Neiman. He died in 2014 at the age of 100.

References

1914 births 2014 deaths American centenarians Men centenarians 20th-century American businesspeople American chief executives of financial services companies Businesspeople from Boston American people of Jewish descent {{Business-bio-stub