There really was an Edward Jones. He was a bond trader who in 1922 founded the St. Louis-based firm that now bears his name.
here
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.
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