Our Story
The Tullett Prebon brand now enjoys unrivalled recognition in the markets globally. Behind the consolidation process of the last five years lays a heritage stretching back 140 years, to 1868.
Prebon
In 1868, Matthew Marshall founded a company called Marshall & Son. Matthew was well connected as his father, also called Matthew, was Chief Cashier at the Bank of England and was responsible for the Bank Charter Act of 1855. Matthew junior began his working career at the Bank in 1839, before moving into broking.
In 1910, Matthew Wilberforce Marshall (son of Matthew Marshall junior) became senior partner of Marshall & Sons. In 1923 the company changed its name to M.W. Marshall and Co. The business flourished and the Marshall family remained in active control of the company right up until 1967.
Marshalls were not the only exchange brokers in town, because in the 1920s another company began broking foreign exchange, Charles Fulton and Co.
By 1967 the Marshall family sold out, and in 1972 the company was acquired by Mercantile House Holdings plc.
Between 1972 and 1991, first Mercantile House and then International City Holdings (ICH), provided consolidation platforms for many of the hitherto independent broking houses: Prebon (US) money broker, Charles Fulton and Co., Woellworth and Co. (established 1926), Kirkland-Whittaker (established 1951) and Babcock & Brown (established 1986).
The combined group known as Babcock Fulton Prebon was the subject of a management buyout in 1991.
The following year in recognition of its relationship with the Yamane group of companies in Japan, the company was renamed Prebon Yamane.
In 1999, Prebon Yamane and M.W. Marshall merged and formed the largest OTC broking group of the time, globally broking an underlying value exceeding US$55 trillion annually. This company was called Prebon Marshall Yamane.
Tullett
Whilst Prebon Marshall Yamane was doing nicely, there was another wholesale broker called Tullett & Riley Co Ltd founded in 1971 by Derek Tullett, also broking foreign exchange.
In the second year of operating, the company became the first international money broker to open a New York office under its own name, and so throughout the seventies and eighties continued to develop a number of overseas offices.
In the year 1983, The Tokyo Forex Company, Japan’s largest money broker, bought a significant stake in Tullett & Riley and changed its name to Tullett & Tokyo Forex International Limited, thus enabling the company to establish themselves in the international markets very quickly.
Elsewhere plans were moving ahead for 36 primary dealers to jointly own their own brokerage firm. This firm was called Liberty Brokerage Inc and was a division of Mabon Nugent.
Liberty, formerly known as PGB Securities, was then acquired by Salomon Brothers and five other securities dealers and banks including Citicorp. They then became known as the Liberty Group which comprised three specialised brokerage subsidiaries; Liberty Brokerage Inc, Liberty Brokerage Securities Inc and Liberty EurAsia Ltd.
Collectively, the group became one of the largest international full service brokers of fixed income securities.
In December 1999, Tullett & Tokyo merged with Liberty Brokerage and created one of the world’s largest inter-dealer brokers, the company then became known as Tullett & Tokyo Liberty plc. The merger also brought together two of the leading providers of technology in electronic trading.
A year later, Tullett & Tokyo Liberty was rebranded Tullett Liberty. In March 2003 Tullett Liberty was acquired by Collins Stewart plc and the group became Collins Stewart Tullett. In October of 2004 Collins Stewart Tullett acquired Prebon Yamane, bringing together two of the oldest and most well respected brokerage houses in the world. Collins Stewart was demerged in December 2006 and listed on the London Stock Exchange as Collins Stewart plc, and Collins Stewart Tullett plc became Tullett Prebon plc at the same time.
The company is now known as Tullett Prebon.
