Morgan's Return

It was almost like the good old days. In an 18th century mansion on Paris' elegant Place Vendome, Morgan & Cie., a name prestigious in French banking since the days of the Franco-Prussian War, last week reopened as an investment banking house. The reappearance of Morgan & Cie.,* complete with tellers' cages of gilded wrought iron, will remind a privileged minority of middle-aged Americans of the prewar years when Morgan's in Paris not only tended its clients' investments, but held their mail, minded their children, and saw their maids and steamer trunks safely into the Ritz across the square.

The old Morgan & Cie. was obliged to abandon investment banking under a 1933 change in U.S. banking law, and disappeared entirely in the 1959 merger of its parent, J. P. Morgan & Co., with New-York's Guaranty Trust. The new firm, organized by a Morgan Guaranty overseas subsidiary in alliance with London's Morgan Grenfell and two Dutch investment banking houses, occupies the same quarters its predecessor did but will carry out quite different functions. Henceforth, Morgan & Cie. will concentrate less on millionaires, more on European subsidiaries of U.S. companies. The bank plans to help them list shares on European exchanges and find loan capital in Continental markets. By these services and by drawing French capital into U.S. enterprises, says Morgan Guaranty President Thomas Gates, Morgan & Cie. "may have substantial beneficial effect on the U.S. balance of payments."

*Originally an abbreviation for compagnie, the Cie. of Morgan & Cie. is no longer so considered, and the firm's name is commonly pronounced "Morgan and see."

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