Chapter 1325: Chapter 453: The Three Most Famous Men in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, as the entertainment capital of the United States, is home to countless celebrities.
But above all these celebrities, there are three very prominent men who are the dream of every woman in Los Angeles.
These three men are Cameron Block, Maurice Rothschild, and Amadei Giannini.
Backed by the Block Family, which has become prominent in the United States in recent years, Cameron Block, although not employed in the Block Family business, is clearly destined for the White House and Congress.
Maurice Rothschild, on the other hand, hails from the old European nobility, the Rothschild Family. This family alone is emblematic of all things, and it is now widely known that the Rothschild Family has started engaging in their traditional financial business in Los Angeles.
The Rothschild Family has acquired banks in Los Angeles and taken stakes in major film studios, evidently prepared to make a significant impact in the emerging film industry.
As for Amadei Giannini, although the Giani Family may not match the Block Family or the Rothschild Family in prominence, in California, the Giannini family is indeed the most powerful.
This success is attributed to Amadei Giannini’s uncle, the great American banker, Amadei Giannini.
It was also Amadei Giannini who founded the United States’ super consortium, the California Consortium!
Amadei Giannini was born into an Italian immigrant family that, like many immigrant families, operated a farm. Although life was hard, they managed.
However, unforeseen events occurred when, in 1878, a grape farmer from the same village, unable to repay a one US Dollar loan borrowed from Amadei Giannini’s father, shot and killed him.
Fortunately, Amadei Giannini’s mother was a strong woman. She took care of three children and managed the orchard alone. After some time, she married a kind-hearted cart driver named Scatina.
Later, Amadei Giannini’s family sold their farm, moved to the Town of San Noe, and ran a fruit store.
During this process, the young Amadei Giannini began to show his talent, becoming his stepfather’s most capable assistant and starting to earn a reputation in the business world.
At the age of 19, Amadei Giannini proposed the concept of a "Farmer’s Bank."
In managing such contractual transactions, Amadei Giannini was very aware of the needs of farmers.
Especially those Italian immigrants who often had to mortgage their farmland to moneylenders for tools and seeds because banks refused to lend to poor farmers.
This led Amadei Giannini to develop the idea of providing loans to these farmers, aiming to secure next season’s harvest contracts without charging interest.
In reality, this was the embryonic form of his initial "Farmer’s Bank" concept.
In the following days, Amadei Giannini realized this idea, and after years of effort, his business had achieved some success. In 1892, he married the daughter of banker Coneil.
In 1902, Coneil unfortunately passed away, and with the shares left by his father-in-law, Amadei Giannini joined Columbus Bank as a board member. Upon joining the bank, he quickly gained the respect and affection of his subordinates but frequently clashed with the bank’s founder due to differing opinions; one insisted on targeting the lower-income demographic and expanding the business scope, while the other was resistant to change.
Ultimately, Amadei Giannini decided to give up. He thought, since I have so many good ideas and suggestions, why not start my own bank? Why suffer under someone else’s roof?
At that time, a large influx of foreign capital flowed into San Francisco, creating a standoff between local American banks and foreign banks.
Yet all these banks were either engaged in speculation or focused on large enterprises, none considering small-scale, poor farmers. Amadei Giannini believed that only by targeting these farmers as loan recipients could his future bank establish a foothold.
Thus, Amadei Giannini, along with ten friends, decided to form a bank together through pooled resources.
The shareholders would only take up 1/3 of the shares, while the remaining 2/3 would be raised among ordinary citizens, including fishmongers, vegetable market owners, and some rural farmers.
Overall, it primarily targeted Italian immigrants, and the name was decided to be the Italian Bank.
His idea was indeed unconventional. Initially, many did not understand, but they later realized that this was the only way to quickly expand the bank’s influence among the public and explore a new field.
This was exactly Amadei Giannini’s extraordinary insight.
Subsequent facts proved that it was precisely because of his business strategy that the Italian Bank could rapidly rise from humble beginnings.
Initially, raising capital was very difficult since the Italian immigrants on the North Coast traditionally preferred to hide gold coins under the mattress rather than invest in stocks and become shareholders. When capital was insufficient, Amadei Giannini and several other initiators increased their investment to make up the stock quota.
After some twists and turns, on October 17, 1904, the Italian Bank officially announced its opening.
Although the deposits of the Italian Bank increased month by month after its opening, it still lagged significantly behind Columbus Bank.