BANKING: The New Champ

A few weeks ago in San Francisco, gruff, bearish Amadeo Peter Giannini, 75, “retired” boss of the Bank of America, was attending a board meeting. As Senior Vice Chairman Francis Shaw Baer droned through figures describing the bank’s condition, old “A.P.” fidgeted like a school boy with two fingers raised. Suddenly he jumped up, pounded the table and roared: “For God’s sake, Franny, give ’em the big news!”

The big news : A.P. was sure that Bank of America had become the world’s biggest private bank; it had passed Manhattan’s Chase National Bank in the third quarter. But old A.P. could not prove it until last week. Then Chase published its figures and made it official. The figures: Bank of America’s total deposits, $4,750,000,000; total resources, slightly in excess of $5,000,000,000. Chase’s total deposits, $4,620,618,000; total resources, $4,965,394,000.

Hollywood’s Banker. Ever since he started the Bank of America National Trust & Savings Association (then the Bank of Italy) 41 years ago, A.P. has had his hard eyes on this goal. The son of a San Jose (Calif.) farmer, he had made enough money in the commission business and real estate to retire at the age of 31. He soon went back to work, via a bank directorship he inherited from his dead father-in-law. When his ideas for liberalizing the bank’s methods shocked his conservative fellow directors, Giannini started his own bank.

From the start, A.P. was noted for his daring and unorthodox operations. When his bank building was destroyed in San Francisco’s earthquake in 1906, he opened a new bank in a waterfront shed, expanded by lending to businessmen who had been wiped out. A pioneer in branch banking, he now has California blanketed with 491 Bank of America branches. He became Hollywood’s banker, has so far lent the movie industry $150,000,000.

Small Fry Coddler. He bought small bond issues of rural school districts, which no one else would touch. When lack of bids threatened the whole Golden Gate Bridge project, A.P. bought the bonds. He also coddled the small fry: any regularly employed person can borrow up to $300 on his signature alone. When the Securities and Exchange Commission objected to some of his operations, A.P. defended himself by attacking. He haled the SEC into court and won.

Banker Giannini has always said he would quit when his bank became the world’s greatest. But last week A. P., who had formally “retired” again last spring, showed no signs of quitting. Instead, he was off on a three-month tour of Europe to see about some foreign loans.