Kuhn, Loeb & Co.

Kuhn, Loeb & Co. was an American multinational investment bank founded in 1867 by Abraham Kuhn and his brother-in-law Solomon Loeb. Headed from 1885 onwards by Jacob H. Schiff, Loeb's son-in-law, it grew to be one of the most influential investment banks in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, financing America's expanding railways and growth companies, including Western Union and Westinghouse, and thereby becoming the principal rival of J.P. Morgan & Co.

In the years following Schiff's death in 1920, the firm was led by Otto Kahn (died 1934) and Felix Warburg (died 1937), men who had already solidified their roles as Schiff's able successors. However, the firm's fortunes began to fade following the end of World War II in 1945—it failed to keep pace with a rapidly changing investment-banking industry, in which Kuhn, Loeb's old-world, genteel ways, did not seem to fit; the days of the gentleman-banker had passed.

The firm lost its independence from the Bulge Bracket in 1977 when it merged with Lehman Brothers, creating Lehman Brothers, Kuhn, Loeb Inc. The combined firm was itself acquired in 1984 by American Express, forming Shearson Lehman/American Express and with that, the "Kuhn, Loeb" name was retired.