Salomon Brothers

Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

Salomon Brothers began in New York City in 1910, founded by Arthur, Herbert, and Percy Salomon with clerk Ben Levy. What started as a Wall Street partnership grew into one of the era’s most formidable investment-banking names: big bond deals, institutional clients, and enough financial horsepower to make a pocket calculator sweat.

The firm operated from New York, including 1 New York Plaza beginning in 1970 and later 7 World Trade Center. In 1981, commodities trader Phibro acquired Salomon Brothers, taking the partnership public through the combination. The parent’s identity evolved through Phibro-Salomon and then Salomon Inc., while the Salomon Brothers name remained a major force in securities trading and investment banking.

Its 1980s and 1990s reputation was pure high-voltage Wall Street: a dominant fixed-income operation, mortgage-backed-securities innovation, enormous risk appetites, and a culture immortalized—none too gently—in Michael Lewis’s 1989 Liar’s Poker. Corporate confidence came with the volume turned all the way up.

Travelers Group acquired Salomon Inc. in 1997, combining Salomon Brothers with Smith Barney as Salomon Smith Barney. After Travelers merged with Citicorp in 1998, the business became part of Citigroup. On April 7, 2003, Citigroup renamed the investment-banking operation Citigroup Global Markets Inc., retiring the Salomon name from that division.

Our Salomon Brothers collection celebrates the sharp suits, bond-trading bravado, Lower Manhattan nerve, and unapologetically loud finance-era mythology of this Wall Street heavyweight.