Loomis (company)
| Publicly traded Aktiebolag | |
| Traded as | OMX: LOOM B |
| Industry | Security, cash transport, banking/ATM services |
| Headquarters | Stockholm, Sweden[1] |
Area served | Europe and United States[1] |
| Products | Cash handling, banking, cash transit, ATM services[1] |
| Website | www.loomis.com |
Loomis (formerly Loomis, Fargo & Co.) is a cash handling company. The modern company was formed in 1997 by the consolidation of two armored security concerns, Wells Fargo Armored Service and Loomis Armored Inc. Loomis is an international leader in the cash handling services industry. Their international network covers over 400 operating locations in the US and eleven western European countries.
In the US, Loomis operates an electronically linked service network of nearly 200 operating locations, employs over 8,000 teammates and utilizes a fleet of approximately 3,000 armored and other vehicles to provide secure armored transport, automated teller machine (ATM) services, cash processing and outsourced vault services for banks, other financial institutions, commercial and retail businesses. It was a division of Securitas AB from 2001 to 2008, when it was listed at Nasdaq OMX Stockholm.[2][3]
History
Wells Fargo Armored Service
When the express mail firm of Wells Fargo & Company ceased express service in 1918 upon the organization of American Railway Express, the company continued to exist, though no longer an operating company in the United States. George C. Taylor of American Express was president of American Railway Express with Burns D. Caldwell of Wells Fargo as chairman of the board of directors. Davis G. Meller, previously the firm's foreign traffic manager, assumed the presidency of Wells Fargo in 1918.[4]
Elmer Ray Jones, who had been with Wells Fargo since 1893, purchased Wells Fargo & Company's Express in Mexico and Wells Fargo in Cuba in 1919 for $640,000. He headed a group of men from Wells Fargo and American Express in 1924 to buy Wells Fargo & Company in the United States from the E.H. Harriman estate, making arrangements with the executors, Charles A. Peabody and Robert W. DeForest. The shares were taken by American Express (51 per cent) and the group of individuals headed by Jones (29 per cent); the remaining 20 per cent remained outstanding. In 1924 Jones was elected president of Wells Fargo, which sold its 20,000 shares in the Wells Fargo Nevada National Bank, severing the final tie between the two institutions. [5]
Jones redeveloped Wells Fargo as a concern for armored transportation and other specialized express movements. In 1947, for instance, he personally supervised the transfer of 13 tons of gold from Montreal to Mexico City by airplane. The company had a fleet of 50 armored cars in New York City, ten stores handling farm equipment, automobiles and trucks, and (together with American Express) the largest travel agency in Mexico. It also provided fast railroad freight service through a subsidiary, the Wells Fargo Carloading Corporation.[6]
Succeeding Jones as president of Wells Fargo were Ralph T. Reed in 1956, Howard L. Clark in 1960, R.D. Beals in 1963, and James A. Henderson in 1964. Wells Fargo continued its overseas express service until the 1960s; by the middle of the decade, its subsidiaries operated armored cars in 12 Eastern and Southern states, and the concern had entered the coin-auditing and coin-rolling business.[7]
As an operator of armored cars, the company did business as the Wells Fargo Armored Security Corporation as an affiliate of Baker Industries, and later, after its acquisition by Borg-Warner Security, as Wells Fargo Armored Service.
Loomis Armored Inc.
Lee B. Loomis established Loomis Armored Car Service in 1925 in Portland, Oregon. The company's headquarters was moved to Seattle, Washington, in 1932. Loomis died in 1949, but Loomis Corporation remained under his family's ownership until 1979 when it was acquired by Mayne Nickless. Wingate Partners purchased Loomis in 1991, and the company was consolidated with Wells Fargo Armored Service in 1997 to form Loomis Fargo & Company.[8]
Merger
On July 15, 1996, Borg-Warner Security agreed to consolidate its Wells Fargo Armored Service with Loomis Armored Inc. Employing 8,500 and providing armored transportation, cash services and automated teller machine maintenance, the new concern was named Loomis Fargo & Company.[9] The transaction was completed in 1997.
In 2001, the company joined Securitas AB, which was founded in Helsingborg, Sweden, in 1934 by Erik Philip-Sörensen. On November 16, 2006, Securitas AB Chief Executive Officer Hakon Ericson announced the company's intention to split into several independent, specialized security companies, with its cash handling service division adopting the name "Loomis" throughout its international network. By the end of June 2007, the transition to the new identity had been completed, with Loomis employing 20,000 people in a network of 420 operating locations in 11 European nations and the United States. Loomis US currently operates 200 operating locations with 8,000 employees (whom it terms "teammates") and a fleet of 3,000 armored cars.
In 2008, Loomis was distributed to the Securitas shareholders and listed at Nasdaq OMX Stockholm as Loomis AB.[3]
Major robberies
During its first year of operation as the new Loomis Fargo & Company, the company was the target for two of the largest cash robberies ever committed on American soil.
In March 1997, employee Philip N. Johnson, on his own, stole $18.8 million from the Loomis Fargo armored car that he was driving. In the October 1997 Loomis Fargo Bank Robbery, employee David Scott Ghantt and accomplices stole $17.3 million from the Loomis Fargo Charlotte, North Carolina branch vault that he was supervising. The perpetrators of both robberies, and a significant majority of the cash, were later caught by law enforcement.
These two robberies, along with the unrelated $18.9 million Dunbar Armored robbery, which also occurred in 1997, were the first to surpass the previous holder of the title "largest cash robbery" in U.S. history, the $5 million cash portion (along with $0.9 million in jewellery) of the Lufthansa heist of December 1978.
The UK division of the company hit the headlines in February 2006 when armed robbers raided its cash center located in Tonbridge in Kent. The criminals made off with £53m in what is known as the Securitas depot robbery.[10]
The next month, a Securitas van in Warrington, Cheshire was also robbed by criminals who rammed it with a stolen tractor and subsequently made off with over half a million pounds.[11]
Again the same month, an armed gang robbed a Securitas van as it was unloading money at Gothenburg's Landvetter Airport in Sweden.[12]
On October 4, 2007, two armored truck guards working for Loomis were killed in a robbery in Northeast Philadelphia. Another man was wounded. A bank surveillance photo showed the gunman walking up to the two guards, shooting both of them execution-style, and running off with a bag containing ATM deposit envelopes. The man later confessed to the killings.[13][14]
See also
References
- 1 2 3 "Annual Report 2009" (PDF). Loomis Armored. April 2010. Retrieved 2011-02-24.
- ↑ "Annual Report 2001" (PDF). Securitas. Retrieved 2011-02-21.
- 1 2 "Annual Report 2008" (PDF). Securitas. Retrieved 2011-02-21.
- ↑ Noel M. Loomis, Wells Fargo, pp. 317-318. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1968.
- ↑ Loomis, pp. 317-318.
- ↑ Loomis, pp. 318-319.
- ↑ Loomis, p. 318.
- ↑ "Loomis Armored - Our History & Heritage". Loomis.us. Retrieved 2012-01-29.
- ↑ "Wells Fargo and Loomis forming armored car company", The New York Times, July 16, 1996.
- ↑ "Jurors see CCTV of £53m robbery". BBC News. July 5, 2007. Retrieved 2007-08-07.
- ↑ "Hunt for Securitas raiders continues". dailymail. March 8, 2006. Retrieved 2011-12-17.
- ↑ "Gang attacks plane in Gothenburg". The Local. March 7, 2006. Retrieved 2007-08-07.
- ↑ Mensah M. Dean (February 18, 2010). "Jury decides slayings of armored-car guards are 1st-degree murder". Philadelphia Daily News. Retrieved 2011-02-22.
- ↑ "City man (36) confesses to ATM killings". Philadelphia Daily News. October 5, 2007. Archived from the original on February 2, 2008.