Беер Леон Фульд

 Beer-Leon Fould, in 1795, founded a bank whose name would change repeatedly, from B L Fould and Fould-Oppenheim, to Fould Oppenheim und Co., and eventually to Fould Co.

Beer-Leon Fould, son of a small-time wine dealer in the Moselle Valley, went to Paris in 1784 as the agent of Cerf Berr de Medelsheim, a leading Strasbourg arms dealer and banker. Once in Paris, he developed a brisk business in collecting interest on government bonds and other sums owed to his roster of clients back inLorraine. From there, he expanded into other areas, including after 1790 speculation in the new national currency and in confiscated church property. Despite going bankrupt in the late 1790s and again in 1810, Fould continued to widen his network of correspondents, especially among the Jewish merchants abd bankers of Germany who needed a representative in the Imperial capital.

The Foulds attained even greater prominence under the Second Empire, when Beer-Leon's son Achille joined the Pereire brothers in founding a new generation of joint-stock investment banks and then served Napoleon III as finance minister. ...