Legg Mason history

Five years later, in 1905, he became a partner.

Then in the aftermath of the 1929 stock market debacle, when the partners had to keep the firm solvent by selling off their own stock.

In 1949, after the departure of Mackubin, John C. Legg, Jr. named the company after himself.

In 1959, after graduating from the College of William and Mary, he entered that family business as a trainee, but, anxious to start up his own firm, he left after two years.

Chip Mason and some associates had formed Mason & Company in 1962, in Newport News, when Mason was only 25.

In 1967, Mason & Co., with over 80 employees in 4 offices, became one of the largest Virginia-based stockbrokerages.

In 1970, it had offices in San Francisco, New York, as well as several in Maryland, with over 400 employees.

In 1973, three years after the merger, a second major change occurred when Legg Mason merged with Wood Walker & Co., a New York-based investment firm.

In 1975, Raymond A. Mason became chairman and CEO, adding to his existing role as president.

A major step was taken in 1979, when the company set up its first mutual, money-market fund, the Legg Mason Cash Reserve Trust.

The company did so in 1981, forming Legg Mason, Inc.

In 1982, Legg Mason Fund Adviser, Inc. was established to manage the company’s flagship fund, Legg Mason Value Trust.

In 1983, the company became a public company via an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange, raising $14 million.

The resulting Legg Mason Value Trust, having no front- or back-end sales load, was a slow starter, in part because of the sluggish economy, but by the end of 1985 the fund had drawn $422 million in investments.

In 1986, despite serious reservations voiced by his staff, and using Merrill Lynch & Co. as broker, Legg Mason acquired Western Asset, a California-based bond-managing firm that had been placed on the auction block by First Interstate Bancorp.

In just more than a year, however, the bond manager increased its asset management load by $1 billion, and by 1988 it was providing most of a $10 million increase in Legg Mason's revenue from its investment advising services.

1990: Legg Mason enters the commercial mortgage banking field by buying Latimer & Buck, Inc.

In 1992 the company underwrote 263 municipal bond issues with a value of $11.7 billion.

By 1993, Legg Mason had 870 brokers in 83 offices, primarily located in middle-Atlantic and southern states.

A year later it also bought Cincinnati-based Bartlett & Co., a domestic equity manager, and Lehman Brothers Global Asset Management's London-based international fund management branch. Its acquisitions continued in 1995, when it purchased Boston's Batterymarch Financial Management, a company that specialized in equity management on a global scale.

That loss alone was not enough to explain why, in 1997, Batterymarch managed only $4.3 billion in assets, $700 million less than it managed when acquired by Legg Mason.

1998: Company moves headquarters to Light Street in downtown Baltimore.

In July 2002, the company sold its stockbrokerage subsidiary to Raymond James Financial.

The two firms were brought together under Legg Mason Investment Counsel & Trust Company, N.A. in 2004.

In 2005, the company transferred its Private Client and Capital Markets business to Citigroup in exchange for Citigroup’s asset management business in a $3.7 billion transaction, turning Legg Mason into the 5th largest money management firm in the United States

In 2006, fund manager Bill Miller's streak of beating the S&P 500 15 years in a row ended.

In January 2008, Mark R. Fetting became CEO of the company, succeeding Raymond A. "Chip" Mason.

April 2009: Legg Mason makes its first and only appearance in the Fortune 500, coming in at No.

In May 2010, the company announced layoffs of as many as 350 people.

September 2012: Fetting leaves the company months before expiration of an agreement with Peltz not to force a sale or merger.

January 2013: Legg Mason announces plans to fold its once high-profile Legg Mason Capital Management unit, led by Miller, into its New York-based ClearBridge Investments subsidiary.

April 2016: Peltz’s firm sells off much of its stake in Legg Mason to a Singapore-based investment holding company, Shanda Group, which bought nearly 10% of Legg stock for $336.8 million.

Legg Mason Investor Services, LLC is a subsidiary of Legg Mason, Inc. | 100 First Stamford Place | Stamford, CT | 06902 © 2017 Legg Mason Investor Services, LLC. Member FINRA, SIPC