Bache, one of the grand old names in Wall Street history, is making a comeback of sorts as insurance giant Prudential rebrands its global commodities business.
Long banished to the dusty archives of Wall Street lore, the Bache name is once again attached to Newark-based Prudential in the form of Prudential-Bache Commodities.
In 1981, after a disastrous attempt to help the Hunt Brothers corner the silver market, Pru bought Bache & Co. for $385 million, and tried to compete against the likes of Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch as Prudential-Bache.
The venture met with mixed success, but an infamous foray into risky limited partnership sales led to the dropping of the Bache name in favor of Prudential Securities.
Four years ago, much of the firm was sold to Wachovia Securities, although Pru retained an equity stake.
Globally, the new Prudential-Bache unit provides trading execution and margin for commodities traders, and the firm has developed a commodities index.
Prudential had retained the Bache name for its European operations, where the Hunt Brothers and the partnership sales debacles were of little consequence. In London, the unit will be known as Bache Commodities.
The renaming of the unit is being done to “streamline” and “emphasize the importance” of its global commodities business, said a Prudential spokesman. Already, staff is using the Bache domain name in e-mail and a new Web site is being designed.