BBH: An Old Fashioned Wall Street Partnership Thrives

IT IS a modern glass and steel structure in downtown Manhattan, but the biggest tenant of 140 Broadway could almost have come from the pages of a Charles Dickens novel. The eight top partners of Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH) share an office, the Partners’ Room, sitting at two rows of antique desks, overlooked by a painting of the firm’s stern-faced founders. “As befits a general partnership, this lack of individual offices promotes sharing of ideas and ensures there can be no secrets,” says Digger Donahue. The firm’s unstuffy managing partner revels in its history. Founded in the early 19th century, it arranged America’s first initial public offering and, as owner of a fleet of ships, once held a monopoly on mail delivery to Britain.