This Hamburg banking house is primarily a merchant bank and a private bank, organised as limited partnership with personally liable partners. Founded by the Berenberg family, emigrants from Antwerp in modern Belgium, in 1590, it is the oldest bank in existence in Germany and the second oldest bank in the world. Since its establishment, the bank has been continuously owned by a Hanseatic family dynasty comprising the three related families Berenberg, Gossler and Seyler, making it the world's oldest family-owned bank.
The firm was originally a merchant house active in large-scale import-export, and became involved in both shipping and merchant banking in the Seventeenth Century. Today it is one of the leading independent merchant banks and private banks of Europe. Its core areas are investment banking, institutional asset management, private banking for wealthy private customers and commercial banking. The firm adopted its current style in 1791.
In the Nineteenth Century, the firm financed industrialisation in Hamburg and transportation activities, and was strongly involved in the North American trade and its finance. The company was one of the main founders of the Hamburg America Line in 1847 and the Norddeutscher Lloyd in 1857. It was also one of the main founders of Vereinsbank Hamburg (1857), the Ilseder Hütte ironworks (1858), and the Norddeutsche Versicherungs AG (1857). Furthermore, it was among the founding shareholders of Bergens Privatbank (1855), Den Danske Landmandsbank (1871) and the Svenska Handelsbanken.
It has its head office in Hamburg and operates branches in Bielefeld, Bremen, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt am Main, Munich, Stuttgart, Wiesbaden, Braunschweig, Wien and Salzburg, as well as representative offices in London, Zurich, Paris and New York.