Bonds without Borders: A History of the Eurobond Market

CHAPTER 2 Building the Base 1963–1969

Siegmund Warburg was raised in Tubingham, Germany, a scion of the German banking dynasty which operated the second largest bank in Hamburg, M.M. Warburg. After his education, Siegmund Warburg joined the bank, gaining valuable experience in its offices in London, New York and Boston before settling to pursue his career in Berlin. He built influential relationships with senior bankers, amongst them Hjalmar Schacht, President of the German Reichsbank during the Weimar Republic, and a fierce critic of his country's post-World War I reparation obligations. Schacht, a supporter of Hitler and the Nazi Party, although not of German re-armament, served in Hitler's government as President of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics, until 1937.

When the Nazi Party came to power they instigated their campaign to deprive all Jews of positions of influence. One day in 1933, Von Neurath, Hitler's first Foreign Minister, hinted to Warburg that he was a target of the regime and he should leave Germany at the earliest opportunity. Feeling an imminent war was unavoidable, Warburg with his wife and two small children emigrated to London in April 1934.¹

In 1936, with the help of the Rothschilds and others, he set up a finance company in King William Street in the City of London with capital of £25,000. Called the ‘New Trading Company’ or ‘Nutraco’ for short, the company financed the growth of small businesses while quietly aiding German and Austrian refugees ...