page_title: Bank Lombard Odier & Co
section_title: Lombard, Odier & Cie
hierarchical_section_title: Bank Lombard Odier & Co / History / Lombard, Odier & Cie
caption_attribution_description: English: Jean Gédéon Lombard (1763-1848)
context_page_description: The Lombard Odier Group is an independent Swiss banking group based in Geneva. Its operations are organised into three divisions: private banking, asset management, and back and middle office services for other financial institutions.
  At the end of 2018, the bank reported outstanding balances managed through these three divisions totalling CHF 259 billion in managed assets, which makes it one of the biggest players in the Swiss private banking sector.
  The group was formed in 2002, as Lombard, Odier, Darier, Hentsch & Cie, by the fusion of Lombard, Odier & Cie and Darier, Hentsch & Cie.
  As the latter was originally founded in 1796, the group has a claim to being the oldest private bank in Geneva.
  The company name was simplified to Lombard Odier Group in 2010, although the firm continues to include on its official logo the names of the four founding partners.
  Since 2014, the bank has held the status of Limited Liability Company. The Lombard Odier Group is a legal holding company under Swiss law, bearing the name Lombard Odier Company SCmA since 2016.
context_section_description: Lombard, Lullin & Cie were heavily affected by the economic environment during the bank's first few years. From 1800, the bankruptcy of the firm Corsanges in Lyon resulted in Jean-Gédéon Lombard losing 30,000 francs, causing Jean-Jacques Lullin to go bankrupt. In spite of this, the firm was able to continue in business. Jean-Jacques Lullin left the bank on 31 December 1815, but continued as a limited partner until his death in 1837. Therefore, from 1816 the firm took the name Jean-Gédéon Lombard & Cie until 1 January 1826, when Jean-Gédéon Lombard partnered with Paul-Frédéric Bonna. The bank then took the name Lombard, Bonna & Cie. On 31 March 1830, Paul Frédéric Bonna left the firm to start his own bank, Bonna & Cie. The bank remained active for almost a century, before  being absorbed into Hentsch & Cie in 1920.
  In 1830, Jean-Gédéon Lombard (aged 66), handed over the bank to his eldest son Jean-Eloi Lombard. He then appointed Charles Odier as associate manager on 1 April 1830, and the bank became Lombard, Odier & Cie. Charles Odier, who was 25 years old at the time, had learned the banking profession from the firm Gabriel Odier & Cie, which was managed by his Parisian cousin, and held significant assets from the success of the company F. Courant & Odier, which he founded in 1826 in Le Havre for importing cotton from the USA. 
  Jean-Eloi Lombard dedicated himself to local business while Charles Odier concerned himself with international business, particularly thanks to contacts that he had maintained from the US. Under the management of Jean-Eloi Lombard and Charles Odier, the bank financed large infrastructure works which characterised the Industrial Revolution. In 1834, Lombard, Odier & Cie co-financed the construction work at the Canal de Roanne in Digoin, a project which turned out ot be unprofitable despite the successful completion of the canal. 
  The firm then embarked on financing railways, and from 1852 to 1872, Charles Odier acted as one of the administrators of the West Switzerland Company.
  In 1834, Alexandre Lombard, the third son of Jean-Gédéon Lombard (aged 24), became a managing partner for the bank. 
  He was responsible for steering Lombard, Odier & Cie towards the American market, at a time when the American frontier needed both funding and construction for facilities, roads, railways and canals. This approach, which was deemed risky due to it coinciding with the end of the American financial crisis of 1837, proved to be a winning strategy ten years later. As the political and economic environment in Europe deteriorated following the revolts of 1848, the US experienced great expansion. Alexandre Lombard prioritised financing American railway companies. The bank issued letters to its clients containing quotes for international stock, at a time when these were difficult to access. In 1857, the partners from Lombard, Odier & Cie participated in creating the Geneva Stock Exchange.
  On 1 December 1859, the only son of Charles Odier, Jacques (also known as James) Odier, became a partner at the bank. This followed his trip to the US in 1854 and his marriage to Blanche Lombard in 1856, the daughter of Jean-Eloi. Jacques Odier continued to grow Lombard, Odier & Cie on American soil. In 1870 he joined the executive board for the Genevan branch of what would become the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas (Bank of Paris and the Netherlands). 
  Along with Jules Darier-Rey, in 1872 he also co-founded the Genevan life insurance company Genevoise Compagnie d'Assurance sur la Vie, which would later be chaired by his son Émile and then his grandson Edmond. Alexis Lombard, the son of Jean-Eloi Lombard and brother-in-law of Jacques Odier, became a partner in 1866. He became a founding member of the Chamber of Commerce of Geneva in 1872, created the Genevan Bank of loans and deposits in 1881, and became a member of the board of the Swiss National Bank after it was created in 1907.
  Jules Verne mentioned  Lombard, Odier & Cie in his novel From the Earth to the Moon (1865). In the novel, the bank collected donations to finance the scie
caption: Jean-Gédéon Lombard (1763–1848)
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