Henry S. Ives

Henry S. Ives (circa 1862–1894) was an American financier, speculator and stock manipulator, the "Napoleon of Finance," who caused a brief but spectacular Wall Street scandal in the 1880s.

Ives was born in Connecticut and arrived penniless in New York City as a young man. "Baby-faced, slight of build, and short",[1] he rose from a salary of $10 per week, to controlling millions of dollars of property, within five years.[2]

With partners George H. Stayner and Thomas C. Doremus, he founded the firm of Henry S. Ives and Company in 1886, while still in his 20s. The firm immediately began acquiring the stocks of railroad companies, inflating their stock prices, which provided additional borrowing leverage for more acquisitions, then raiding their corporate treasuries once they'd assumed control. He controlled the Mineral Range Railroad in Michigan,[3] the Terre Haute and Indianapolis, and his largest conquest was the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railway in 1886.

In May 1887 the expulsion and later unexplained re-admission of Doremus as a member of the New York Stock Exchange caused a disruption in the NYSE's Board of Governors, including resignations within the governing committee.[4]

When Ives attempted a takeover of the venerable but troubled Baltimore and Ohio Railroad he provoked a legal and financial battle with its chief, Robert Garrett (son and successor of John W. Garrett). This triggered a collapse of the entire scheme on August 11, 1887. That announcement, at ten minutes before the close, caused unrestrained cheering on the NYSE trading floor.[5] Ives's total liabilities amounted to $25,000,000. Creditors eventually settled for five cents on the dollar. Ives and Stayner were tried for grand larceny in September 1889 but acquitted on a hung jury.[6]

Ives died of tuberculosis in Asheville, North Carolina, five years after the trial.

References

  1. ↑ The Pennsylvania Railroad at bay: William Riley McKeen and the Terre Haute ... By Richard T. Wallis
  2. ↑ Moody's Magazine, December 1909, page 454
  3. ↑ American narrow gauge railroads By George Woodman Hilton, page 423
  4. ↑ New York Times, May 9, 1887
  5. ↑ New York Times, August 12, 1887
  6. ↑ Moody's Magazine, December 1909, page 454
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