Fenner & Beane was a brokerage firm based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded in 1916 as Fenner Gatling & Beane, it was renamed in 1919. The firm was founded by the Beane Brothers, who were New Orleans cotton merchants, to manage their exposure to fluctuations in commodity prices.
History
The firm's predecessor, Beane Brothers was founded in early 1900s by Alpheus Crosby ("Alph") Beane and his brothers Frank E. Beane Jr. and William Sterling Robert Beane. The firm traded primarily in cotton with offices in Columbus, Georgia, and New Orleans. Beane Brothers was dissolved about 1915, and in 1916 Alph Beane entered into a new brokerage firm Fenner, Gatling & Beane.
Beane's partner, Charles E. Fenner, came from a distinguished New Orleans family, as his cousin was a justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court. Confederate president Jefferson Davis died in the Fenner home in New Orleans in 1889.[2]
The firm expanded quickly through the Southern states and Midwestern U.S. through the 1920s, focusing primarily on the trading of commodities, particularly futures contracts for grain and cotton. The firm was a member of the various commodity exchanges in New Orleans, Chicago, and Memphis, Tennessee. By the 1930s, Fenner & Beane had established itself as the second largest brokerage firm in the U.S. However, the firm was suffering from decreased trading volumes caused by the Great Depression.