Simon Lazard (April 8, 1828 – February 24, 1898) was a Franco-American banker who co-founded Lazard Frères & Co., reorganized in 2000 as Lazard.
A native of Lorraine, France, a young merchant of antebellum New Orleans, pioneer of the California gold rush, and, finally, an international banker by the end of the nineteenth century, Simon Lazard with his brothers in Lazard Freres had built high-level financial relationships in business and government within a network encompassing France, England, and the U.S.
Family
Simon Lazard was born to a Jewish family on April 8, 1828, in Frauenberg, Moselle, Lorraine, in northeast France. He was the son of Elie Lazard (1796–1831), a farmer, and Esther (née Aron, 1798–1875). His father died when he was three, and his mother was remarried to Moïse Cahn (1796–1872), also of Frauenberg. He was the fifth oldest of the household’s eleven children, seven fathered by Elie and four by Moïse, a close-knit family. Note: In early American newspapers, for the younger half-brother and half-sister Cahn siblings, the name Cahn Lazard was sometimes used, recognition of a connection to their elder Lazard half-siblings. That name is used here.
New Orleans
In 1844, at the age 16, he moved to New Orleans where his older brothers Lazare (1821-1875) and Alexandre (1823-1904) had previously moved following an uncle. They were soon joined by their brothers Maurice (1825-1891) and (1831-1897). New Orleans in the early 1840s was the United States' third-largest city, the trade hub for the South, and had the largest concentration of French language speakers. The brothers, all in their teens and early twenties, opened Lazard Frères & Co. at Poydras and Carondelet Streets, a few blocks from the Mississippi River landing, a small shop that offered fancy and staple dry goods, for “a very small profit.” Simon and his brothers signed a partnership agreement for “Lazard Frères” on July 12, 1848, the birth certificate of today’s multi-national Lazard, the world’s largest independent investment bank.
California Gold Rush
In late 1848, news of the California gold discovery swept up the brothers. The oldest, Lazare, left New Orleans first, in 1849. On January 16, 1850, Simon boarded the steamship Falcon bound for California via Chagres, the Isthmus of Panama, and the Pacific Coast. Maurice and Elie followed after the summer sales, announcing to the press their planned “temporary absence,” and the purchase of 200 barrels of Kentucky whiskey for the San Francisco market. (Elie's name shows on the July 25, 1850, census of New Orleans and the October 10, 1850, census at Sacramento as a clerk with cousin Maurice Kremer, suggesting a quick transfer to the gold fields). While Simon set up shop in booming San Francisco’s waterfront, Alexandre made a quick buying trip to England and France, an annual event after moving to California, the standard process for the brothers during their 1850s merchant business — one of the brothers on extended, annual buying trips to New York or Europe, while the other brothers operated the thriving business.
During its first years, Lazard Frères & Co. moved frequently. Their first store was destroyed in San Francisco’s catastrophic May 1851 fire, then to Montgomery and Pine Streets, followed by Maynard’s Row on California Street, in 1855 to 64 Sacramento Street, and subsequently to 215-217 Battery.
In the 1860s, they moved into their own building, a grand store at 525-527 Market Street, which was a multi-story structure with sales rooms below and office above. The firm specialized in drygoods, from worker’s boots and trousers to fancy French goods, including linens, wine and champagne. They wholesaled goods to miningcamp traders, while also serving as agents for European firms, selling goods in the booming California market. (San Francisco had grown from 459 people in 1847 to an estimated 50,000 by 1856.) In this instant city, Lazard Frères became one of the biggest retailers and wholesalers of English and French made goods, while Simon handled money trading and banking, a growing but informal part of the business.
Gold Exchange and Expanding Business
From the first they dealt in gold dust, in exchange for goods to miners, then as separate purchase of precious metal bullion (or, in reality, a crude dore bar), which they shipped back to France for assay and sales. Beginning with a shipment in March 1851 of $5,000 in nuggets and dust, by 1853 they had shipped over a quarter-million dollars worth of precious metals. Simon’s initial trade-dust and bullion business expanded to include currency exchanges and banknotes.
