Charles R. Schwab - Career

Career

In 1963, Charles R. "Chuck" Schwab and two other partners launched Investment Indicator, an investment newsletter. At its height, the newsletter had 3,000 subscribers, each paying $84 a year to subscribe. In April 1971, the firm was incorporated in California as First Commander Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Commander Industries, Inc., for traditional, brokerage services and to publish the Schwab investment newsletter. In November of that year, Mr. Schwab and four others purchased all the stock from Commander Industries, Inc., and in 1972, Mr. Schwab bought all the stock from what was once Commander Industries. In 1973, the company name was changed to Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. In September 1975, Schwab opened its first branch in Sacramento, CA, and started offering discount brokerage. In 1977 Schwab began offering seminars to clients, and by 1978 Schwab had 45,000 client accounts total, the number growing to 84,000 in 1979. In 1980 Schwab established the industry’s first 24-hour quotation service, and the total of client accounts grew to 147,000. In 1981 Schwab became a member of the NYSE, and the total of client accounts grew to 222,000. In 1982, Schwab became the first to offer 24/7 order entry and quote service, its first international office was opened in Hong Kong, and the number of client accounts totaled 374,000.

Today, the company serves 8.2 million client brokerage accounts, with $1.65 trillion in assets (as of September 2011), from over 300 offices in the U.S., one office in Puerto Rico, one branch in London, and one branch in Hong Kong. Clients can also access services online and by telephone.

Read more about this topic:  Charles R. Schwab

Famous quotes containing the word career:

    What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.
    Arlie Hochschild (20th century)

    Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.
    Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

    A black boxer’s career is the perfect metaphor for the career of a black male. Every day is like being in the gym, sparring with impersonal opponents as one faces the rudeness and hostility that a black male must confront in the United States, where he is the object of both fear and fascination.
    Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)