In every merchant banking dynasty, there is one pioneer who began with nothing and died rich.
The Rothschilds started out as coin changers in the ghetto.
The bearings and textiles, the hambros and foodstuffs, the warbergs and silver, and the westbergs began in grains.
Grandfather arrived in town in style, sitting on top of a hay cart loaded high with corn.
So the author's grandfather was a merchant baker.
He said people in town used to call him Albert the Benevolent because he would lend them money at 5%.
I had no idea what that meant.
Later, I heard that when Albert the Benevolent liked the man,
he would lend him money without any collateral, taking a chance on the man's promise to pay him back.
Later, grandfather switched from corn to credit in the manner of all merchant bankers and opened a coin-changing office.
Grandfather then extended the firm into the banking house, A.
Westberg & Company.
The company in the name of the firm were exactly,
as in the case of most merchant bankers, grandfather's sons who became his partners.
One of them was my father.
The bank was doing very well.
When grandfather died with his perfect sense of timing in 1913, one year before the outbreak of the First World War,
he was 86 and he was the richest man in town and very much loved.
He owned land, mills, factories, houses, distilleries, stocks, and bonds.
Occasionally, a merchant banker puts his money on the wrong debtor, as you will read in this book.