Crowne Financial Group

Crowne Financial Group Holdings plc is one of the largest financial service groups in the world and the largest in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters and main offices are located in No. 1 Crowne Center, the tallest skyscraper in Philadelphia. With branches and offices in various nations throughout the world, Crowne Financial is a global bank.

History

A Colonial Bank (1852-1903)

Founded in 1852 by William Crowne, the original Crowne’s Banking and Lending Company provided personal financial services to its clients and by 1858 had expanded to include providing commercial financial services to locally-owned and operated companies. The strong growth of the eastern islands of the Azazian Archipelago brought Crowne’s bank a significant return on its investments that the company promptly reinvested back into itself.

By 1874, William Crowne had died and his bank became Crowne Banking and Lending Company, his family took the company public on the new stock exchange in St. Brendans, quickly evolving into the most prosperous city in the archipelago. Although the Crowne family remained at the head of the company, they listened to the shareholders and the bank moved westward until 1892, at which time it had a branch open on every inhabited island in the archipelago.

The turn of the century brought with it new challenges, as the simmering feuds in Europe sailed to Azazia from across the Pacific. Local officials in the German and French colonies forbade Crowne from doing business and in 1903 the company lost its foothold on several western islands and especially in the fast-growing resort city of Caliz. However, the British holding of Kingston within the heart of the French claim allowed French companies and persons to do business with Crowne, albeit at risk of government reprisal.

Growth and Expansion (1904-1913)

In 1904, the Entente Cordiale allowed Crowne to openly move into the struggling French colonies, where it quickly bought up several smaller banks and then underwent its first major reorganisation. Because of the linguistic and cultural barriers between the British management in St. Brendans and the French colonies, the company spun off its first subsidiary—Crowne Banks Kingston, which while headquartered in the English-speaking Kingston, operated almost exclusively across the island where most of the people spoke French.

Until 1907, Crowne Banking and Lending operations remained largely the same with the single exception of entering the Philadelphia market with the American colony being handed over to the British government for cash considerations. It was not, however, until 1907 that the bank’s growth exploded as the Treaty of Georgetown created a free-trade zone within the archipelago. With its enormous capital reserves, Crowne moved quickly to acquire numerous banks in the foreign colonies until by 1910 it had the highest share of the financial market and was establishing a reputation for quality customer service and—most importantly—results.

However, 1910, also saw the beginning of trials and troubles for Crowne Banking and Lending. With independence seen as the next major development, the British colonial government based in Georgetown authorised the founding of an official state bank, to be known as the Commonwealth Bank. Although many bankers complained of the unfair favour given unto the Commonwealth Bank, which functioned as both a commercial and central bank, the Commonwealth Bank became the dominant financial player and when independence did come in 1912, the Commonwealth Bank became the official issuing body of the Commonwealth Credit. Crowne Banking and Lending had until 1912 been advocating against a monopoly on money issuance and so in 1912, the bank saw its first major dip in stock prices.

Global Markets (1914-1979)

Although the new Commonwealth of Azazia remained neutral throughout World War I, Crowne Banking and Lending made several loans to Western governments and Western corporations that proved the bank’s viability and previewed future success as an international bank. By the 1920s, Crowne had begun to rebound from its lows of 1910-1912 until it regained its prior dominance in the banking industry in 1927. It was in 1927 that Crowne Banking and Lending purchased St. Brendans Investment Company (SBIC), an investment bank that allowed Crowne to move beyond its role in providing simple loans and accounts to individuals and companies and expand into raising capital and providing strategic advice.

The acquisition led to the next major reorganisation, the company became the Crowne Financial Services Group with three separate subsidiaries: the older Crowne Banks Kingston, and Crowne Banking Services for personal and commercial bank account services, and Crowne Investment Services for the new investment banking opportunities provided by the acquisition of SBIC. Although the world market suffered a series of setbacks in the late 1920s, the ever-growing Crowne Financial Services Group managed to weather the global depressions and recessions and as such it rolled into the 1930s and pre-World War II years in a strong position.

Crowne Financial Services suffered another setback, however, when the Japanese invaded the western islands and shut down all offices and branches that fell under Tokyo’s control. It would not be until 1945 and the end of the war before Crowne regained its assets in the western islands and was able to begin investing in its future outside the archipelago.

In the wake of the war, many European nations and businesses required loans and financing to rebuild, reconstruct, and reorganise themselves. Crowne provided these services to companies not just in the archipelago but the broader Australasia/Oceania region as well as to a select number of clients in Great Britain. As the investments began to bear fruit in the 1950s and 1960s the company acquired several more banks within the archipelago and additionally in smaller Pacific nations.

Towards a New Future (1980-Present)

1980 saw the agglomeration of even more banks into Crowne, although the end of the year saw the first major blow struck against the company by the government. Geoffrey Hedley, Prime Minister at the time, pushed the Commonwealth Bank Act of 1980 through Parliament and split the Commonwealth Bank into a publicly traded commercial bank and a government-run central bank. Crowne’s efforts to purchase the nascent commercial bank, also known as Commonwealth Bank, were rebuffed by Parliament on the grounds of anti-competitiveness that would result in the banking and financial services industry. Instead, Commonwealth Bank plc organized itself into a strong commercial bank that to-this-day serves as a stiff competitor to Crowne.

In 1993, Crown Financial Services Group created a parent company to oversee its growing responsibilities and holdings; this new company was to be named Crowne Financial Holdings plc, and was to be traded not just on the stock exchange of St. Brendans, long ago renamed Breningrad, but also on the Philadelphia Exchange (PHEX). In 1999, Crowne Financial Holdings announced that the company’s headquarters and main offices would be relocated to Philadelphia and in 2003 construction began on the Crowne Centre that was to house the new offices.

Activity

Market capitalisation and asset holdings: Crowne Financial Group is the largest bank, in terms of market capitalisation, in the United Kingdom. Including its assets, the average value per account is £34,251 for its over 5.1 billion accounts

Employment: With its large number of overseas clients and foreign business, Crowne Financial Group employs over 272,000 individuals while operating over 25,000 branches across the world.