Kidder, Peabody & Co.

Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

Kidder, Peabody & Co. began in Boston on April 1, 1865, when Henry P. Kidder, Francis H. Peabody, and Oliver W. Peabody reorganized the banking and brokerage business of J. E. Thayer & Brother. It dealt in banking, brokerage, foreign exchange, government and municipal securities, and the rising industrial economy’s bonds and stocks.

The firm became a fixture of old-money finance: born on Boston’s State Street, active in both Boston and New York, and eventually headquartered in New York to follow the center of gravity. It helped finance railroads and industry, including underwriting the first American Telephone and Telegraph bond issue in 1899. Suitably serious work, performed with suitably serious stationery.

After the 1929 crash, Albert H. Gordon bought and rebuilt the struggling house in 1931, emphasizing utility finance and municipal bonds. General Electric acquired Kidder, Peabody in 1986. The firm later endured insider-trading trouble and a 1994 government-bond trading scandal involving falsely reported profits—an especially unglamorous way for a Wall Street legend to meet the spreadsheet.

In October 1994, GE agreed to sell most Kidder assets to PaineWebber. The transaction was completed in phases in January 1995, and PaineWebber retired the Kidder, Peabody name after nearly 130 years.

Our Kidder, Peabody & Co. (also styled Kidder, Peabody & Company) collection celebrates a Boston-born, Wall Street-seasoned financial ghost: private-bank gravitas, bond-market bravado, and the faint rustle of a very expensive wool suit.