Year 1990:
u Michael Milken pled guilty to six felonies and was given a lifetime ban from the securities industry. Drexel Burnham Lambert, the company Milken worked for, went bankrupt the same year. The company sold its investment banking business and trading business to Lehman Brothers, and its brokerage sector and asset management sector to Shearson, which was later bought by Primerica in 1993. Primerica is a financial service provider in the US.
u Credit Suisse, a Swiss-based financial services company, acquired CS First Boston and became the first non-US company to own a majority stake in a major American investment bank.
Year 1991:
u Salomon Brothers’ treasury bond scandal surfaced. Warren Buffett took up the post of temporary CEO to keep it from going broke.
Year 1992:
u On September 16, George Soros and his Quantum Fund became world famous for “breaking the bank of England”, as stated by the Economist.
Year 1994:
u American Express spun off its investment banking and institutional business as Lehman Brothers Holdings.
Year 1995:
u A Bubble started to swell in the internet industry. During this period, venture capital investment entered a phase of fast development.
u Morgan Stanley and China Construction Bank set up a joint venture - China International Capital Corporation (CICC). Morgan Stanley held 34% of CICC.
Year 1997:
u The Asian financial crisis started in Thailand and later affected the whole of Asia.
u Stock markets around the world crashed amid global financial turmoil. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped by 554 points in a single day.
u Morgan Stanley bought Dean Witter Reynolds and changed its name to Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. It changed back to Morgan Stanley four years later.
u More Wall Street mergers were conducted and super-scale transactions became popular on Wall Street.
Year 1998:
u Brought down by the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the Russian financial crisis in August and September 1998, Long-Term Capital Management reached the edge of bankruptcy. The Federal Reserve of New York organized a bailout of US$3.625 billion by major Wall Street players including Credit Suisse First Boston, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and etc.
u On October 8, Citigroup was formed out of a record merger of Citicorp and Travelers Group. Citigroup became a multinational financial corporation that provides financial services of almost all kinds - commercial banking, investment banking, insurance, mutual funds, brokerage business etc. It was the first of its kind in the United States.
u NationsBank acquired Bank America and became Bank of America.
Year 1999:
u On March 29, 1999, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) broke the 10,000 mark.
u The Glass-Steagall Act was abolished.
u Goldman Sachs went public, marking an end to the partnership system in major Wall Street companies.