A Novel Celebration

"I thought they would be dripping chinchilla and mink," said a Seattle society editor, "but they look just like anybody." Maybe so, but the 184 U.S. industrialists, foreign bankers and wives who gathered in Seattle last week were anything but an ordinary group. By one awed (and decidedly exaggerated) estimate, they commanded 90% of the free world's capital. The occasion: a five-day traveling party to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Manhattan-based Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., the largest, and by far the oldest U.S. private bank.

Both the guest list and the itinerary symbolized Brown Brothers Harriman's intimate connections with U.S. industry and global finance. There were such business bigwigs as U.S. Steel's Roger Blough, Bethlehem's Edmund Martin, Columbia Broadcasting's William S. Paley, President Orville Beal of Prudential Insurance, and Texaco Chairman Howard Rambin Jr. Among the foreign bankers: Director Otmar Emminger of West Germany's Deutsche Bundesbank, Governor Louis Rasminsky of the Bank of Canada, Vice Chairman Marcus Wallenberg of the powerful Stockholms Enskilda Bank.

Seating by Computer. Brown Brothers Harriman saw to everyone's comfort with the best of banker-like touches. Computers matched the guests' characteristics to promote compatible seating at dinners. There was an armored car to carry valuables from the Olympic Hotel to Union Station while Chairman William M. Allen of Boeing (a Brown Brothers client) entertained the group at his home after a tour of his company's Renton plant. Then everybody got aboard two 20-car Union Pacific special trains for the long run to Sun Valley, Idaho. There, behind closed doors, they took part in two days of serious talk about world monetary problems. The world's top central banker, Chairman William McChesney Martin of the Federal Reserve Board, joined the discussion.

Personal ties link the partners of Brown Brothers with both the Union Pacific Railroad and the Sun Valley resort. U.S. Ambassador-at-Large W. Averell Harriman, now a limited partner in the firm, was chairman between 1932 and 1946 of the railroad his father once ran. U.P.'s present chairman, E. Roland Harriman, Averell's brother, is a partner in the bank. As for Sun Valley, Averell Harriman started it 32 years ago as one of the U.S.'s first major ski resorts. (The railroad sold it in 1964.)

Serving the Wealthy. If the celebration was novel, so is the bank that sponsored it. "People have a terrible time trying to understand Brown Brothers Harriman," says Partner Thomas McCance, 66. "We perform an unusual set of services, and 150 years ago they forgot to put the word 'bank' in our name."

Though primarily a commercial bank, Brown Brothers also manages a large investment portfolio and operates as a stockbroker, having been a member of the New York Stock Exchange since 1882. With banking offices at 59 Wall Street, in Philadelphia and Boston, plus brokerage offices in Chicago and St. Louis, Brown Brothers concentrates on highly personalized service for wealthy individuals and medium-sized corporations. Its 5,000 customers are expected to keep a $10,000 minimum balance in their checking accounts. Despite its comparatively modest size for a Manhattan bank (assets: $360 million), the firm often uses its expertise to head credit syndicates involving far larger banks. As a private partnership, Brown Brothers does not divulge its revenues or profits, but its 24 partners have plainly prospered by building on historic traditions.

Brown Brothers was founded in 1818 as a Philadelphia merchant bank by the sons of Alexander Brown, a Belfast linen auctioneer who emigrated to the U.S. and became a millionaire trader and banker. The bank pioneered in the use of travelers' letter of credit. P. T. Barnum used one when he bought his famous white elephant, and Woodrow Wilson carried one for $10,000 when he went to the 1918 peace conference at Versailles. In need of capital after the 1929 stock-market crash, Brown Brothers merged with two Harriman family firms in 1931, giving the bank its present name and form.

Nine partners still operate from 19th century rolltop desks in a hushed sanctum off the main banking floor at 59 Wall Street. Oddly, such devotion to old manners seems to breed new ideas. Because Brown Brothers' overseas lending has been crimped by U.S. balance-of-payments strictures, the firm last month opened its first non-U.S. branch, in Nassau, the Bahamas. Last week, in a move to strengthen its capacity to raise funds overseas, the firm agreed to buy an interest in London's Fleming-Suez Ltd., a recently formed financial combine.

With the gala birthday party over, the next big change involves Brown Brothers' four senior partners: Roland Harriman, Knight Woolley, former Defense Secretary Robert Lovett and Prescott Bush, former G.O.P. Senator from Connecticut. Fellow Yalemen all ('17 and '18), they will be 73 by year's end. In about a month, the four plan to va cate their rolltop desks or offices close by the partners' room and move up stairs to semiretirement, letting younger men take over gradually. The firm, of course, expects to be around for quite a while. In fact, the partners recently signed a new 119-year lease on their headquarters.

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