25 years of blacks in financing.

Not too long ago, if you wanted to convene a meeting of black America's financial all stars--individuals with power and influence in the banking, finance and insurance industries--you probably could have fit them neatly into one small conference room. In fact, Granite Broadcasting CEO W. Don Cornwell, then a top trader at Goldman Sachs, convened a meeting in 1978 between National Urban League President Vernon Jordan and blacks in corporate finance. Only 17 people showed up.

How things have changed! Even though many financial gurus and deal-making wizards, including Cornwell, have launched successful business ventures moving them out of finance, a steady wave of newcomers has replaced them. This new army of financial whizzes has engaged the financial industry with a "take-no-prisoners" attitude, leading to a series of economic breakthroughs.

The financial warfare of the past 25 years has been fought with an arsenal of MBAs, law degrees, business plans and venture capital. African-Americans led an assault on the financial services industry with this weaponry. They received key support from such market forces as interest rates, legislation such as the Community Reinvestment Act and good old-fashioned wisdom. The results are undeniable.

For 25 consecutive years, African-Americans have improved their economic standing in America. During those years, BLACK ENTERPRISE has chronicled and celebrated the achievements that have spurred that growth.

In 1973 when BE began listing the top black-owned banks, savings and loans and insurance companies, their assets totaled less than $2 billion. Twenty years later, the assets of black-owned financial institutions were an impressive $4.2 billion. This steady growth has occurred despite an overall decline in the total number of black financial institutions, from 123 in 1973 to 76 in 1993.

The same phenomenal growth has occurred on Wall Street. The investment banking landscape has changed since 1971 when Daniels & Bell became the first black-owned investment bank to secure a seat on the "Big Board" of the New York Stock Exchange. Black investment bankers have been the architects of some of the biggest deals on the Street. People are still talking about BE's exclusive coverage of the late Reginald F. Lewis' leveraged buyout of TLC Beatrice International in 1987.

Such shrewd deal making prompted many Wall Street executives to start their own investment banking firms during the 1980s. Success came quickly, and BE was there, beginning our annual listing of the nation's top black-owned investment banks in 1991. In 1993, firms on the BE investment bank list co-managed bond issues worth $162.7 billion.

With billions of dollars in trading activity, BE sought to discover which black traders had the hottest hands. The BE October 1992 cover story, "25 Hottest Blacks on Wall Street," put money mavens such as William Blair & Co. 's Michelle L. Collins, one of only two women on our list, in the limelight for the first time.

Capital has even been flowing in the venture capital markets. Once, federally funded Minority Enterprise Small Business Investment Corporations (MESBICs) served as the premier source of venture capital for small minority businesses. Now, a crop of privately run black-owned firms, led by Boston-based UNC Ventures, have found creative ways to generate millions of dollars for investing.

Unfortunately, not all the news has been good. Discrimination in the financial services industry serves as a continuing reminder that even the most successful blacks still confront barriers to advancement. Some of those who started their investment banking firms in the 1980s did so because they felt they weren't compensated properly at white-owned firms.

In the accounting industry, Bert Mitchell and Robert Titus are celebrating the 20th anniversary of their accounting firm, Mitchell, Titus & Co., the nation's largest minority-owned accounting firm (see "Two Decades In The Black," in this issue). However, there are relatively few other success stories in accounting, where blacks have never represented more than 1% of the workforce.

Black-owned insurance companies have endured a shaky 25 years, since the industry has not enjoyed robust profits in many years. Strong companies got stronger and weak companies struggle to keep pace. North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co., led by CEO Bert Collins, remains the nation's largest black insurance firm, and a prominent symbol of the black business legacy of Durham, N.C.

Atlanta Life Insurance Co.'s Jesse Hill Jr. has been one of the beneficiaries during these tough times. His company, No. 2 on the BE INSURANCE LIST, has snapped up several of the smaller black-owned insurance companies that could not weather the storm of competition from majority firms. As a result, in 1973, there were 42 black-owned insurance companies, twenty years later the number had dropped to 23.

The semiannual BLACK ENTERPRISE Board of Economists' roundtable has analyzed black America's economic challenges since its christening in 1982. Economic forecasts from such authorities as Andrew Brimmer, former member of the Federal Reserve System Board of Governors and Bernard Anderson, now assistant secretary in President Clinton's Labor Department, have helped many Wall Street wizards to pick the proper time to cut their masterful deals.

Black America's financial sophistication has progressed to the point that several years ago BE began to offer regular stock picks to hungry investors eager to pad their portfolios. In fact, the BE Investment Roundtable brings together some of the nation's most respected stock market experts, all prominent examples of African-American talent in the finance industry. (See "Stocks Worth Buying Now," this issue.)

Indeed, black America's financial troops have landed, securing a stronghold in the economic future of the nation. The formation of professional organizations over the past 25 years, such as the National Bankers Association and the National Association of Securities Professionals, will help keep a steady stream of reinforcements prepared and ready to continue the battle for the next 25 years. We know it's working.

When Calvin Grigsby and Napoleon Brandford III, principals of Grigsby Brandford & Co., (ranked No. 2 on the 1994 BE INVESTMENT BANK LIST) sent out invitations to their annual public finance conference at the posh Silverado Country Club & Resort in Napa Valley, Calif., the response was far different from what Cornwell received in 1978. Instead of a room filled with 17 people, it was a three-day, "standing room only" affair.

How times have changed.

1969

The National Association of Black Accountants (NABA) was founded by nine black accountants in New York.

1970

Johnson Products Co., commanded by founder and CEO George E. Johnson, becomes the first black firm sold on the American Stock Exchange.

1970

Parks Sausage Co., led by founder and CEO Henry G. Parks Jr., debuts on the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation exchange (NASDAQ).

1970

The first Minority Enterprise Small Business Investment Corporations (MESBICs), which provide millions in venture capital to minority start-up companies, are chartered.

1971

Daniels and Bell becomes the first black-owned investment banking firm to be admitted to the 178-year-old "Big Board" of the New York Stock Exchange. D&B co-founders, Willie E. Daniels and Travers J. Bell, open the doors for the first Harlem Securities Corp. to follow suit four months later.

1973

Bert Mitchell and Robert Titus form Mitchell, Titus & Co., which by 1994 becomes the largest minority-owned certified public accounting firm and 37th largest in the nation, with $17 million in assets.

BE starts ranking the top black industrial service companies, banks, savings and loan associations and insurance companies. Today, there are 37 black-controlled banks, 44 savings and loans and 42 insurance companies.

1975

Harold Doley purchases a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. New Orleans-based Doley Securities shells out $90,000 to be the third minority on the NYSE's Big Board.

The National Association of Urban Bankers, a union of minority financial institutions and bankers, is formed.

1978

For the first time ever, the nation's 49 black banks, 40 savings and loans and 39 insurance companies' combined assets top $2 billion.

1980

Raymond V. Haysbert Sr. buys Parks Sausage Co. from the white investors who acquired controlling interest in the publidy traded company in 1977. The deal marked the first leveraged buyout of a historically black-owned company.

1980

JoAnn Price is appointed president of the National Association of Investment Cos., a trade association for MESBICS, in Washington, D.C. Price spends the next 14 years identifying and developing venture capital sources for minority entrepreneurs before becoming president of Fairview Capital Partners.

1982

1982

BE launches its annual Board of Economists roundtable to discuss black economic development. Charter board members indude: Nobel Laureate Sir Arthur Lewis; Marcus Alexis, Northwestern University business professor; Andrew Brimmer, business consultant and former member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; and Phyllis Wallace, professor at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

1984

TLC Group, led by Reginald F. Lewis, acquires the McCall Pattern Co. for $25 million. In 1987, Lewis sells the firm for $90 million.

Edward Dugger III builds an $18 million fund for UNC Ventures in Boston, making it the largest of the nation's privately run black-owned venture capital firms.

1985

National Association of Securities Professionals, an organization of minority and women securities industry experts, is launched.

Minority Enterprise Small Business Investment Corporations (MESBICS) changes its name to Specialized Small Business Investment Corporations.

1985

Atlanta Life Insurance Co. and North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co., No. 1 and No 2, respectively on the BE Insurance List, battle over Mammoth Life and Accident Insurance Co., a Louisville, Kybased bank with $29 million in assets. Jesse Hill Jr., Atlanta Life's president, emerges the victor. He starts a mission of mergers and acquisitions, vowing to acquire an average of one company every year.

1987

Reginald F. Lewis, president of TLC Group Inc., initiates the largest off-shore leveraged buyout in business history with his $985 million acquisition of Beatrice International Foods. The next year, TLC Beatrice International rockets to the top of the BE INDUSTRIAL/SERVICE 100 with revenues of $1.8 billion.

1988

Travers J. Bell, cofounder of Daniels & Bell investment banking firm, dies of a heart attack.

1989

Alvin Boutte, president of Indecorp Inc., the holding company for Independence Bank of Chicago, buys Drexel National Bank. Indecorp's total asset base rises $113 million to $230 million.

Grigsby Brandford, one of the nation's top black-owned investment firms, holds its first annual public finance conference on a cruise ship from San Francisco to the Bahamas.

1990

Carver Federal Savings Bank regains its position as the nation's largest black S&L, raising its assets to more than $260 million by acquiring one branch of the failed Nassau Savings & Loan Association.

Atlanta Life Insurance Co. acquires Chicago Metropolitan Life Assurance Co. and boosts its net worth to $231 million. It's the third acquisition for Atlanta Life in the last five years.

1990

Freedom National Bank in Harlem was shut down and liquidated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Of the more than 152 banks to fail in 1990, FNB was only the fifth to be liquidated. Questions of a "double standard" in the procedures used to close a bank are raised by Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel. In 1990, Freedom National was No. 4 with $120.6 million in assets on BE's annual bank list.

1991

BE ranks the top 12 black investment banks by the amount of their municipal bond underwriting participation for the first time.

Bert Collins is named CEO of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co., the nation's largest black insurance company. William J. Kennedy III ends 18 years as CEO of NCM, becoming the last of three generations of Kennedy ancestors to run the 93-year-old firm.

1991

Maceo Sloan, the chief investment officer for NCM Life Insurance Co., leads the management buyout of NCM Capital Management, a subsidiary of the insurance firm, to form Sloan Financial Group Inc.

1991

Ernesta Procope, E.G. Bowman's president, moves into Wall Street's investment side. E.G. Bowman, the first and largest minority-insurance brokerage firm, spans nearly 40 years. This year, Procope formed Bond, Procope Capital Management, an investment firm, with Wall Street whiz Alan Bond. Within two years, the firm reported managing assets of $315 million.

1991

BET Holdings Inc., Black Entertainment Television, becomes the first black-owned company traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The offering raises $72.3 million.

1992

BE publishes its list of the "25 Hottest Blacks on Wall Street." Principals of four, black-owned firms make the list. Two women make the list, Michelle Collins of William Blair and Marianne Spraggins of Smith Barney, Harris Upham. Spraggins, who would leave Smith Barney the following year, was Wall Street's first and only African-American female managing director.

1992

Granite Broadcasting completes a $24 million initial public offering.

1992

Pryor, McClendon Counts & Co., the nation's second-largest black-owned investment firm, lead-manages the $400 million debt offering for the new Denver International Airport. This was the largest municipal finance deal ever led by a black firm.

1994

OmniBanc Corp., a $22.8 million holding company, buys Indecorp, a union of two banks with $290 million in assets, for $35 million.

Richard D. Parsons is named CEO of the newly merged Dime and Anchor Saving Banks. The new Dime Bancorp becomes the fourth largest thrift bank in the nation with $20 billion in assets.