Hayden, Stone & Co.

Hayden, Stone & Co.

Company type	Acquired
Industry	Financial services
Founded	1892 (1892)
Founder	Charles Hayden Galen L. Stone
Defunct	1979 (1979)
Fate	Acquired in 1979 by Loeb, Rhoades, Hornblower & Co.
Successor	Shearson Hayden Stone, Shearson/American Express
Headquarters	New York, New York , United States
Products	Investment banking, Brokerage

Hayden, Stone & Co. was a major American securities firm founded in 1892 by Charles Hayden and Galen L. Stone. The firm was acquired by Cogan, Berlind, Weill & Levitt in 1972 and, after its name disappeared in 1979, was part of what would become Shearson/American Express in 1981.^{[citation needed]}

In 1892, Clark, Ward, & Co. clerks Charles Hayden (later the benefactor of the Hayden Planetarium) and Galen L. Stone opened a new brokerage house, Hayden, Stone & Co.^[1] While Stone was known for remaining silent, Hayden gained a reputation for quick decisions and mastery of the brokerage business.^[2] Foreseeing the needs of electrification, Hayden made his fortune by investing in copper mining. The new investment firm prospered, expanding from its Boston base to open a New York City branch in 1906.^[1]

In 1970, the prestigious Hayden, Stone found itself in financial trouble along with many other large securities firms. Hayden, Stone was acquired by Cogan, Berlind, Weill & Levitt (often jokingly referred to as Corned Beef With Lettuce), whose partners included Sandy Weill and Arthur Levitt, and renamed itself CBWL-Hayden, Stone, dropping the CBWL from the name just two years later, allowing Weill to rid himself of the Corned Beef With Lettuce moniker.^[3]

The new Hayden Stone, Inc. then completed possibly its most significant acquisition to that point, merging with Shearson, Hammill & Co. Once again, Weill chose to adopt the target's branding to become Shearson Hayden Stone. The Hayden Stone name was finally abandoned in 1979, following the acquisition of Loeb, Rhoades, Hornblower & Co. to form Shearson Loeb Rhoades. Just two years later, in 1981, Weill sold the combined company to American Express to form Shearson/American Express.

At one point, the firm was considered to be the third largest "wire-house" in the country behind only Merrill Lynch and Bache & Co.

The following is an illustration of the company's major mergers and acquisitions and historical predecessors (this is not a comprehensive list):^[4]

• Peter A. Cohen, former CEO of Shearson Lehman Hutton and current CEO of the Cowen Group
• Richard Donchian, commodities and futures trader, and pioneer in the field of managed futures
• Charles Hayden, founder
• Amos Hostetter Sr., noted trader and co-founder of Commodities Corporation
• Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., businessman and political figure, patriarch of the Kennedy family
• William O'Neil, American entrepreneur, stockbroker and writer, who founded the business newspaper Investor's Business Daily
• Joe Plumeri, Citigroup executive and CEO of the Willis Group^[5][6]
• Arthur Rock, venture capitalist
• Samuel Howard Sloan
• Galen L. Stone, founder
• Lou Stone, broker, father of Oliver Stone, director of Wall Street, among others
• Frank G. Zarb, former energy czar under Gerald Ford and former chairman of NASDAQ

• Wilko v. Swan

• Hayden, Stone, & Company Records at Baker Library Special Collections, Harvard Business School