Heinrich Albert von Bary (* 26 March 1847 in Barmen (now part of Wuppertal); † 14 December 1929 in Berlin) was an entrepreneur.
Family
editThe eldest son of Heinrich Karl (1805-1851) with his second wife Laura Wilhelmine Orth spent his youth in Barmen.
In Buenos Aires in May 1873 he married Aires Célina Saavedra (* 22 June 1852 in Buenos Aires - 13 November 1876 in Funchal (Madeira)), the daughter of the former governor of the Argentine province of Buenos Aires.
His second marriage was in Spaa in April 1879 with Anna Maria Whittle Merill (* in Natchez (USA), + 13 May 1931 in Berlin), the daughter of the former ambassador and minister plenipotentiary of the United States of North America in Brussels, Ayres Phillips Merrill.
She knew how to successfully support her husband in fulfilling his many representative obligations through her great social skills.
Career
editHe acquired his commercial training in Argentina, from where he returned to Europe in 1876 as a representative of the well-known Argentine banking house Ernesto Tornquist & Co.
Albert de Bary then settled in Antwerp and founded the company H. Albert de Bary & Co there.
When the North German Lloyd set up an East Asian and an Australian line in the 1880s, Albert de Bary managed to get Antwerp chosen as the starting point for these lines, rather than Vlissingen or Rotterdam. As a result, the company H. Albert de Bary & Co. was soon given the Antwerp general agency of the North German Lloyd, which it held until the end of the First World War.
In 1887, the management of the Disconto-Gesellschaft in Berlin and the Norddeutsche Bank in Hamburg joined the de Bary company as limited partners, which significantly increased its business capacity.
On December 27, 1893, Albert de Bary was admitted to the Prussian nobility "in recognition of the ancient nobility of his ancestors."
(In 1904 he had published a family history of the de Bary by Friedrich Clemens Ebrard and Heinrich Nathusius-Neinssted, and had his nephew Carl von Bary publish "Contributions to the History of the Bary Barry" in 1927.)
When a world exhibition took place in Antwerp in 1894, Albert von Bary was a member of its preparatory committee and in this capacity contributed significantly to its success.
In 1897 a number of mayors and representatives of chambers of commerce in southern and western Germany visited the city of Antwerp. For this occasion, the North German Lloyd had sent one of its larger steamers there. On board, Albert von Bary entertained the German guests at lunchtime and in the evening held a reception in his house in their honor, which was attended by several hundred people, including the then Belgian Crown Prince, later King Albert I, as well as numerous leading figures in Belgian politics and business.
The following year, Albert von Bary was appointed "Commandeurd'Ordre de Léopold". Around the same time, he became chairman of the "Société Protectrice des Enfants Martyrs" and honorary chairman of the "Royal Yacht Club de Belgique". As early as 1890, the work published by Jean-Baptiste Van Mol referred to him as one of the "Elus d'Anvers".
In the 1880s and 90s, Albert von Bary founded a number of joint-stock companies, such as the
- "Mutualité Anversoise"
- "Société Anonyme Industrielle et Pastorale Belge Sud Américaine"
- "Compagnie des Produits Kemmerich" ran cattle breeding and the production of meat extract and preserves in Argentina.
In 1900, the company "von Bary & Co." was founded, which now took over the general agency of the North German Lloyd, the Roland Line and the German East Africa Line.
The old de Bary company was converted into the joint-stock company "Compagnie Commerciale Belge anciennement H. Albert de Bary & Co.", to which the "Union Financière" was attached as an asset management company.
Over the following years, the "Compagnie Commerciale Belge" founded a number of other companies, such as the "Société Générale Belge-Argentine", the "Société Foncière Belge-Argentine", the "Alliance Anversoise" and the "Compagnie Rurale Anversoise", which mainly dealt with property and mortgage transactions. The president of all of these companies was Albert von Bary, who was also elected deputy chairman of the "Crédit Foncier Argentin", which he co-founded.
In 1911, Albert v. Bary received large mining concessions from King Leopold II in the province of Katanga in the Congo, to exploit which he founded the "Société Anversoise pour la Recherche des Minesau Katanga".
In the same year he founded the "Société Fonciere Belgo-Canadienne", which carried out mortgage business in Canada, and the following year the "Crédit Belgo-Suisse du Mexique", which dealt with real estate and mortgage business in Mexico.
The numerous companies founded by Albert von Bary operated at that time with a capital of around 350 million gold francs. Albert von Bary's services to the Belgian economy prompted the city of Antwerp and the leading circles of the local trade to hold a banquet in his honor on June 15, 1903, which was attended by around 300 people and at which the city administration celebrated him as a benefactor of Antwerp and announced its intention to name a square and a street in the city after him. In the same year Albert von Bary was appointed Italian Consul General "ad honorem". He also bore the title of Argentine Consul General "ad honorem". In 1907, southern and western German mayors and representatives of chambers of commerce visited Antwerp again, again on Albert von Bary's initiative. King Leopold II awarded him the Grand Officer's Cross of the "Curonne du Congo". Albert von Bary was also an honorary knight of the Order of St. John and the holder of the German Red Cross First Class Badge of Honour. In 1911, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the arrival of the North German Lloyd's Imperial Postal Steamship Lines in Antwerp, Albert von Bary hosted a dinner attended by several Belgian ministers, and at which the minister Baron de Broqueville gave a long speech in recognition of the host's services to the expansion and development of the Antwerp port.
de Bary Bank
edit(His and the Bankiers Compagnie Commerciale Belge, Antwerp, has been seized by the Belgian government on the basis of the peace treaty and will be liquidated. Mr. H. Albert von Bary has left the company and, together with Antwerp friends in Amsterdam, has founded the Handel-Maatschappij H- Albert de Bary, Michelis & Co. with a representative office in Berlin, which, like the Antwerp company before it, will devote itself to general commercial business. We have also taken a permanent stake in the new company.[1])
The outcome of the First World War put an end to Albert von Bary's activities in Belgium. However, the seventy-year-old had retained his old creative energy. In September 1919, with the support of old business friends such as the Diskonto-Gesellschaft in Berlin, the Norddeutsche Bank in Hamburg, the A. Schaaffhausen'schen Bankverein in Cologne and the Süddeutsche Disconto-Gesellschaft in Mannheim, he founded the "Handels-Matschappij H. Albert de Bary & Co." in Amsterdam and took over the chairmanship of its board of directors. The company's beautiful business premises are still located today on the Heerenkracht in Amsterdam.
- Founded in 1919 under the name "Handelmaatschappij H. Albert de Bary, Michelis & Co."
- 1920 renamed Handelmaatschappij H. Albert de Bary & Co.,
- since 1920 majority owned by Disconto-Gesellschaft
Ten years later, de Bary took over the Amsterdam branch of Deutsche Bank, which had been based there since 1921. Deutsche Bank acquired all shares in de Bary in several steps up to 1988 and renamed the company Deutsche Bank de Bary N.V. in 1993. With the takeover of ABN AMRO's corporate banking business in 2010, the bank became the largest foreign bank in the Netherlands. At the beginning of 2016, all activities were transferred to Deutsche Bank AG, Amsterdam branch. With around 650 employees, Deutsche Bank is still the largest international bank in the Netherlands today.