Our History

On December 11, 1879, Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. became one of the first members of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Ernst Thalmann paid $13,550 for his seat on the exchange following Brown Brothers Harriman, Lazard, Lehman, Morgan, and Davenport.

Ladenburg Thalmann also became a member of the Cotton and Produce Exchanges of New York, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade.

Ladenburg Thalmann operated primarily as a merchant bank, providing capital to companies in the form of equity. The firm put together investment syndicates that purchased shares in U.S. companies, similar to today's private equity transactions.

By 1892, Ladenburg Thalmann had an office at 46 Wall Street. That year Ladenburg became treasurer of the Madison Square Garden Company, which later built one of the world's most famous sports arenas.

In 1892, the firm shipped gold valued at $1.255 million from the U.S. Sub-Treasury office to Germany. Another shipment worth $750,000 was made later that year, and a $175,000 gold shipment went to Bremen in 1893 on the German steamer Dresden.

In 1893, Thalmann served on the reorganization committee for Northern Pacific Railroad, after it defaulted on its bonds, and succeeded in getting payments for the bondholders.

In 1894, Thalmann organized an investment group that bought a controlling interest in the Second Avenue Surface Railroad, involving prime New York City property.

At the turn of the century, Ladenburg Thalmann's arbitrage desk had the most modern and extensive wire service on Wall Street. In trans-Atlantic communications, that led to Ladenburg Thalmann handling a substantial portion of arbitrage transactions on two continents.

Ladenburg Thalmann had close connections to Leon Brothers, a London merchant bank and the Guinness family firm, Guinness, Mahon & Co. in London. In 1902, Benjamin Seymour Guinness was admitted as a Ladenburg partner and he was one of the firm's leaders until 1930.

When the properties of the Nashville Railway were foreclosed in 1903, Ladenburg Thalmann put together a syndicate that purchased those assets.

In 1904, the firm shipped $1 million of gold to cover expenses related to the building of the Panama Canal.

In 1905, the Mexican Central Railway Company sold $9 million three-year notes paying 5 percent to a syndicated of bankers headed by Ladenburg Thalmann and Hallgarten Co. The proceeds were used to finance the Mexican Central's Pacific extension.

In 1906, Ferrocarriles Unidos de Yucatan (FUCY) borrowed $1 million from Ladenburg Thalmann for their the railroad business in the Yucatan.

In 1908, the firm financed the merger of the Mexican Central and National Railroad of Mexico - one of the largest financial transactions in Mexico's history.

In 1909, Ladenburg Thalmann represented Credit Mobilier Francaise, which was seeking to increase its capital base. The firm was the underwriter for a new issue that raised 20,000,000 francs from an international group of bankers.

In 1910, Ladenburg Thalmann was a member of a consortium of banks that provided Haiti with bonds needed to repay some of $18 million debt after decades of war.

In 1911, a syndicate headed by Ladenburg Thalmann provided financing for the U.S. railroad Seaboard Air Line.

Also in 1911, Ladenburg Thalmann announced that the common shares of the Philadelphia Company would be the first U.S. stock ever admitted to the floor of the Paris Bourse, the inner circle of the French Stock Exchange.

In 1917, Ladenburg Thalmann and other New York financial firms were active in raising war bonds for the government. The firm invested $1 million in U.S. "Liberty Loan."

In 1919, Ladenburg Thalmann became a member of the International Committee of Bankers on Mexico (ICBM). The committee, which represented holders of defaulted securities, was able to work out a settlement where the Mexican government recognized its debt and agreed to resume payments.

In 1923, the firm arranged a $2 million 30-year bond offering for the Port Arthur [Texas] Canal Dock Company.

In 1924, the firm participated in a syndicate for a $13 million offering for the Market Street Railways Company of San Francisco, and was the lead firm on a $3 million bond issue by the Kansas City Southern Railway.

In 1925, Seaboard Air Line Railway sold $10 million in gold bonds to a syndicate headed by Ladenburg Thalmann and Dillon Read Co. Later in the decade, Kansas City Company, one of the largest U.S. railroads, borrowed $1.83 million from Ladenburg Thalmann.

Black Thursday was October 24, 1929. Ladenburg Thalmann, like other Wall Street firms, worked to salvage failing businesses by making arrangements with creditors.

In 1930, the firm worked with Dillon, Read Co. in devising a plan to repay creditors and prevent the Seaboard Air Line Railway from going into receivership.

Following the enactment of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, Ladenburg Thalmann ceased its commercial banking activity and instead concentrated on investment banking.

In 1936, Ladenburg Thalmann was a member of the underwriters syndicate for $100 million in General Motors Acceptance Corp. (GMAC) debentures.

In 1938, Ladenburg Thalmann and Wertheim Co. purchased 151,447 shares of the capital stock of the Cuban Atlantic Sugar Company from two banking institutions.

In 1939, a banking group that included Ladenburg Thalmann, Lehman Brothers and Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company, purchased $600,000 of bonds offered by Syracuse, New York.

In 1945, an investment banking group headed by Kuhn, Loeb Co. and Ladenburg Thalmann purchased $40 million in bonds issued by the Kansas City Southern Railway Company.

In 1950, Ladenburg Thalmann and Lazard Freres headed an investment group that purchased 600,000 of the 1,667,961 shares outstanding of Tanganyika Concessions. The stock was sold by the British Treasury to raise funds for the government.

In 1959, the firm was the underwriter on an $11 million convertible debenture offering by Pacific Power Light Company, and a syndicator for a $10 million bond offering by Duquesne Light Company.

In 1960, the Port Authority of New York engaged Ladenburg Thalmann as part of an investment banking group that sold a $25 million bond issue.

Ladenburg Thalmann, like other investment firms, benefited from changing federal laws in the 1960s that gave pension funds increased flexibility and allowed them to invest in venture capital and private equity transactions.

In the 1980's Ladenburg Thalmann was active on the floors of the New York Stock Exchange, American Stock Exchange, and an active market maker in over-the-counter (OTC) stocks.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Ladenburg Thalmann managed or co-managed hundreds of initial public offerings (IPOs), helping companies raise hundreds of millions of dollars.

Ladenburg Thalmann was a leading underwriter of SPACs (special purpose acquisition companies) during the 1990s.

During the 1990s the firm continued to build a worldwide reputation for discovering promising new public companies, and focused on four business lines: brokerage, proprietary trading, investment banking and asset management.

Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services was listed on the Amex under the ticker symbol ("LTS")

Ladenburg's parent company acquires five independent broker dealers, totaling over 4400 independent financial professionals.

Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services Inc. (AMEX: LTS) completed its acquisition of Premier Trust Inc. ("Premier"), a provider of wealth management services, including trust administration, estate and financial planning, custody and investment services. Read the Press Release

On June 25, 2010 Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services Inc. (NYSE AMEX: LTS) joined the broad-market Russell 3000(R) Index. Read the Press Release

In 2020, Ladenburg agreed to be acquired by Advisor Group. The total enterprise value of the transaction is approximately $1.3 billion, taking into account Ladenburg's common stock, preferred stock and outstanding debt creating a b/d network with 11,500 advisors and over $450 billion in assets.