Barings' relationship with Hopes
The businesses of Baring Brothers and Hope & Co were closely intertwined throughout their long histories. Both were formed – quite by coincidence – in 1762. Both were private banks owned by family partnerships. Their regular business was finance of international trade but their capital market operations were also hugely important.
In the eighteenth century Hopes dominated the Amsterdam market, then the world’s leading capital market, issuing bonds for sovereign clients such as the Kingdom of Sweden and the Imperial Russian Empire. Barings dominated the London market in the nineteenth century in particular providing finance for entities in the USA, Canada, Russia and Argentina. Such was Barings’ power by 1818 that the French First Minister referred to the six great powers in Europe as ‘Britain, France, Russia, Prussia, Austria and Barings’.
Both firms collaborated from the 1790s when they jointly invested in real estate in the State of Maine and continued to do so into the twentieth century. Hope & Co eventually merged with R Mees & Zoonen which in turn became part of MeesPierson, the private banking arm of Fortis. Barings was acquired by ING in 1995.