• U.S.

Business: Giannini’s 400

2 minute read
TIME

While the Congress was discussing the McFadden branch banking bill (see p. 8), knowing bankers watched the movements of Amadeo Peter Giannini. Mr. Giannini lives in San Francisco. He was born near there, at San José, in 1870. Therefore he may, and does, call himself a Native Son of the Golden West.

When Mr. Giannini was a boy he worked for a commission merchant; at 19 he was that merchant’s partner. When he was 22 he married rich Joseph Cuneo’s daughter. Being a Native Son helped Mr. Giannini increase his father-in-law’s estate; helped him found the Bank of Italy. Being an Italian helped him become a fiscal agent for the Italian government. And, finally, being head of a bank in California, where branch bankinghas long been permitted to state banks, he has been able to set up branches everywhere in the state. Few men in the world know as much about branch banking practices as does Mr. Giannini. If the McFadden bill were to become a law, and national banks open offices in California, Mr. Giannini’s business might be hampered. Foreseeing this, always provident, he asked the Federal Reserve Board to sanction the Bank of Italy’s absorbing the 276 branches of the Liberty Bank of America, a Pacific Coast organization. Last week as the Senate approved the McFadden bill, the Federal Reserve Board approved Mr. Giannini’s consolidation. Now he has assets of $675,000,000 and, though no fruiterer, over 400 branches to ripen in California’s business sun.*

*He has a younger brother, Attilio H. Giannini (see p. 24), who practiced medicine for a time; then gave himself to the presidency of the East River National Bank, New York. He is also chairman of the Commercial Trust Co., New York.

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