Hippolyte Worms

Hypolite Worms joined Worms et Cie in 1910 at the age of 21. He became a managing partner and effective head of the organization on 1 January 1916. Hypolite Worms continued the coal and shipping businesses but also moved into building ships and banking. In 1928, Worms & Cie had three branches: coal trading, shipping, and shipbuilding. Hypolite Worms decided to found a fourth branch for banking, the Services bancaires (Banking Services). Raymond Poincaré had stabilized the franc on 25 June 1928, and the banking industry was entering what promised to be a prosperous period. Worms was impressed by English merchant banks and developed the banking arm of his company along the same lines. It mostly used its own capital and reserves rather than taking deposits and at first primarily financed other arms of the Worms business, although it soon moved into financing trade. Banking Services began to establish privileged relationships with northern Europe. Gabriel Le Roy Ladurie was appointed head of the department in June 1936. By 1939, Banking Services had solid arrangements with banks in London and New York.

The grandfather of Hypolite Worms, also called Hypolite Worms (1801 – 1877), was from a Jewish merchant family from Sarrelouis. He married Sephora Goudchaux, daughter of a banking family from Lorraine. In 1848, he started to import coal to Rouen and Dieppe from Cardiff and Newcastle, and by 1851, he was said to be the largest importer of English coal in France. He bought his first ships in 1855 and, in the 1860s, set up coaling stations at Port Said and Suez that would become an effective monopoly on the supply of coal to ships using the canal. After he died in 1877, Worms et Cie kept its leading position in the coal trade under various members of the Worms and Goudchaux families and ventured into the petroleum trade.

Hypolite Worms was born on 26 May 1889, in Paris. His parents were Lucien Worms, son of the first Hypolite Worms, and Virginie Houcke. His mother was Christian, and he was baptised. He married Gladys Mary Lewis-Morgan, an Anglican. Their daughter married the son of the English ambassador to Japan. Her son, Nicolas Cleaves-Worms, became managing associate of MM Worms and Co., which remained independent after Banque Worms was nationalized in 1982.