Banker was no ‘slave to his money’

A.P. Giannini is remembered as the founder of Bank of America. But when he died at age 79, he was celebrated by San Franciscans for much more than his financial successes. Giannini’s rise, and refusal to forget his roots, could be a model for 21st century business leaders. Below is an excerpt from his San Francisco Chronicle obituary and appreciation, printed the day after his June 3, 1949, death. Although he parlayed a one-room $150,000 enterprise into the world’s largest bank (assets $5,765,000,000),

A.P. Giannini’s own assets reputedly never were great – around the $500,000 mark. Early in his career he unburdened himself of the comment: “When a man has more money than he needs, he’s a slave to his money.” This aphorism came out of a 31-yearold A.P. and was offered to explain his retirement from active business. As the business partner of his stepfather, Lorenzo Scatena, and half-owner in San Francisco’s largest wholesale produce concern, he had decided he was already rich enough. He had real estate holdings that were yielding him $250 a month, and he was shying away from slavery. At least twice in later years, when he

became accustomed to dealing in millions and even billions, he acted decisively to avoid wealth. Once, directors of his gigantic Transamerica Corporation handed him a bonus of $1,500,000. He handed it to the University of California for a school of agriculture economics – the Giannini Foundation. … A.P. was born in San Jose, California, in a second-rate hotel and under circumstances hardly auspicious for the founder of a banking chain that has more than 500 branches, 13,000 employees and 3,500,000 depositors. His parents were immigrants from Genoa. They settled in the Santa Clara valley, and tried farming near Alviso,

where young Amadeo went to school. When he was 7, his father died. His mother married Lorenzo Scatena, then a drayman, and the family moved to San Francisco. By the time he was 19 he had an interest in his father’s business. By the time he was 31, he was able to retire. Family obligations forced him out of that first retirement and put him into the banking business. When he was 22, he married Clorinda Agnes Cuneo, member of a prominent local family. Her father died shortly after A.P. retired. He left her shares in the Columbus Savings and Loan Society and A.P. became a director to protect her interests.

At one of his first meetings, he tangled with the board. A.P. called in his friends, raised $150,000, and opened a bank, in one room, across the street from the Columbus Savings and Loan Society. He called it the Italian Bank of San Francisco – later the Bank of Italy, and still later the Bank of America. At once, A.P. began knocking the starch out of tried, true and conservative banking. He began advertising. He began making loans on little more than a man’s face. He began pleading for small investors. What A.P. did during the 1906 upheaval is an oft told tale that he never tired telling.

The first shock knocked him out of the bed in San Mateo. He looked around and said “I’ve got to get to town!” He found his bank a shambles, but all the funds and papers were intact. A.P. borrowed a couple of vegetable wagons from Scatena & Co. He loaded the records and assets into the wagons, covered them with a layer of oranges, and drove through the ruins, to his home in San Mateo. When order was restored, A.P. dug upthe buried assets, carried them back to San Francisco, and in a waterfront shed, resumed banking while the ruins were stillsmoking. … Giannini ... showed he was a man of

vision and opportunity when he transformed San Francisco’s greatest tragedy into one of his greatest triumphs. San Francisco bankers and businessmen were disheartened, had little hope for the

future, several days after the disastrous April 1906 fire and earthquake. They gathered in a building near the waterfront to hold a wake over the body of the fire-scorched city. Bankers said they would not be able to open their doors before November. Then a young, tall man, in the back of the room, arose and announced to the astonished business men he would open his bank the next day. That man was A.P. Giannini. ... (Upon his death) Bank of America officials announced the more than 500 branches will remain open. “A.P. would have wanted it that way,” they said. “He believed public service comes first.”

A.P. Giannini “began

making loans on little

more than a man’s face.

He began pleading for

small investors.”

The Chronicle, 1949