There really was an Edward Jones. He was a bond trader who in 1933 funded the St. Louis-based firm that now bears his name. The most significant figure in the company's history, though, was his son, Edward "Ted" Jones Jr., a large oil painting of whom has pride of place in the headquarters lobby. Mr. Ted, a farmer and horseman who took over the firm from his father in 1948, once described his company as "just plain folks brining Wall Street to Main Street."
In 1955 Ted Jones opened his first branch office--in Mexico, Missouri, a full 120 miles from St. Louis--an staffed it with what most would call the first "investment representative. Things went smoothly until the late 1960s, when the combination of recession and Wall Street's "back office crisis"--increased trading volume outran the ability of carbon-paper-based systems to handle it--knocked Edward Jones, as well as most other security trading firms, for a loop. " The Dow was down 50 percent," recalls managing partner John Bachmann, "and we had only $1 million in capital left. Sine we couldn't afford to serve institutions, we decided to focus all our attention on long-term investors." Jones also instituted its first and only layoffs, 27 percent of its home office staff. "it took our people 10 years to get over it, and those of us who were there still haven't gotten over it," he says.
In 1990, after the death of Jones, Bachmann, who started out in 1963 as an investment representative in Columbia, Missouri, took over. Jones didn't join the parade of Wall Street firms raising megabucks by going public; it did, however, invest heavily in technology which has served it well.
At the end of 2003, as mandated by the partnership agreement, Bachmann will retire as managing partner at age 65. His replacement will be COO Douglas "Doug" Hill, a 35-year Edward Jones veteran.
Workforce Management, August 2003, p. 32 -- Subscribe Now!
