Loomis Fargo & Company

Loomis Fargo & Company was formed in 1997 by the consolidation of two armored security concerns, Wells Fargo Armored Service and Loomis Armored Inc.

Wells Fargo Armored Service

When the express mail firm of Wells Fargo & Company ceased express service in 1918 upon the organization of American Railway Express, the company continued to exist, though no longer an operating company in the United States. George C. Taylor of American Express was president of American Railway Express with Burns D. Caldwell of Wells Fargo as chairman of the board of directors. Davis G. Meller, previously the firm's foreign traffic manager, assumed the presidency of Wells Fargo in 1918. [Noel M. Loomis, "Wells Fargo", pp. 317-318. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1968.]

Elmer Ray Jones, who had been with Wells Fargo since 1893, purchased Wells Fargo & Company'sExpress in Mexico and Wells Fargo in Cuba in 1919 for $640,000. He headed a group of men from Wells Fargo and American Express in 1924 to buy Wells Fargo & Company in the United States from the E.H. Harriman estate, making arrangements with the executors, Charles A. Peabody and Robert W. DeForest. The shares were taken by American Express (51 per cent) and the group of individuals headed by Jones (29 per cent); the remaining 20 per cent remained outstanding. In 1924 Jones was elected president of Wells Fargo, which sold its 20,000 shares in the Wells Fargo Nevada National Bank, severing the final tie between the two institutions. [Loomis, pp. 317-318.]

Jones redeveloped Wells Fargo as a concern for armored transportation and other specialized express movements. In 1947, for instance, he personally supervised the transfer of 13 tons of gold from Montreal to Mexico City by airplane. The company had a fleet of 50 armoredcars in New York City, ten stores handling farm equipoment, automobiles and trucks, and (together with American Express) the largest travel agency in Mexico. It also provided fast railroad freight service through a subsidiary, the Wells Fargo Carloading Corporation. [Loomis, pp. 318-319.]

Succeeding Jones as president of Wells Fargo were Ralph T. Reed in 1956, Howard L. Clark in 1960, R.D. Beals in 1963, and James A. Henderson in 1964. Wells Fargo continued its overseas express service until the 1960s; by the middle of the decade, its subsidiaries operated armored cars in 12 Eastern and Southern states, and the concern had entered the coin-auditing and coin-rolling business. [Loomis, p. 318.]

As an operator of armored cars, the company did business as the Wells Fargo Armored Security Corporation as an affiliate of Baker Industries, and later, after its acquisition by Borg-Warner Security, as Wells Fargo Armored Service.

Loomis Armored Inc.

Lee B. Loomis established Loomis Armored Car Service in 1925 in Portland, Oregon. The company's headquarters was moved to Seattle, Washington, in 1932. Loomis died in 1949, but Loomis Corporation remained under his family's ownership until 1979 when it was acquired by Mayne Nickless. Wingate Partners purchased Loomis in 1991, and the company was consolidated with Wells Fargo Armored Service in 1997 to form Loomis Fargo & Company. [ [http://www.loomis.us/about-loomis/Pages/loomis-history.aspx] ]

Loomis Fargo & Company

On July 15, 1996, Borg-Warner Security agreed to consolidate its Wells Fargo Armored Service with Loomis Armored Inc. Employing 8,500 and providing armored transportation, cash services and automated teller machine maintenance, the new concern was named Loomis Fargo & Company. ["Wells Fargo and Loomis forming armored car company", "The New York Times", July 16, 1996.] The transaction was completed in 1997.

In what came to be known as the "Loomis Fargo Bank Robbery", the company was the victim of the theft of $17.3 million from its Charlotte, North Carolina regional office on October 4, 1997. It was the second largest cash robbery in US history, exceeded only by the $18.9 million Dunbar Armored robbery, which occurred in Los Angeles on September 13, 1997. An intensive FBI investigation resulted in the arrest and conviction of eight persons directly implicated in the Loomis Fargo robbery and 16 others who assisted them indirectly, and the recovery of some 95 per cent of the stolen cash.

Loomis Fargo in 1999 initiated a strategy for development as an international cash handling service leader. In 2001 it joined Securitas AB, which was founded in Helsingborg, Sweden, in 1934 by Erik Philip-Sörensen. On November 16, 2006, Securitas AB Chief Executive Officer Hakon Ericson announced the company's intention to split into several independent, specialized security companies, with its Cash Handling Servicea Division adopting the name "Loomis" throughout its international network. By the end of June 2007 the transition to the new identity had been completed, with Loomis employing 20,000 people in a network of 420 operating locations in 11 European nations and the United States. Loomis US included by that date nearly 200 operating locations with 8,000 employees (which it terms "teammates') and a fleet of 3,000 armored cars.

References

ee also

* History of Wells Fargo
* Loomis Fargo Bank Robbery
* Dunbar Armored robbery
* Securitas AB