Union Acceptances: The First Merchant Bank, 1955–73

Abstract

The early history of Union Acceptances, today known as UAL Merchant Bank, falls into three stages. In the first of these, which lasted from 1955 to 1961, there was little growth in the economy and the bank established itself slowly. Per capita incomes in 1961 were the same as in 1956. In the second stage, 1961 to 1969, there was rapid economic growth in both the economy and the bank. Undoubtedly this was helped by the introduction of exchange control that locked capital in the country. In this period, though, the early lead of Union Acceptances was lost to other merchant banks. The ending of this period of expansion was marked by the crash on the Stock Exchange in 1969, and by the resignation from the bank of its chairman, Sidney Spiro, to take over Charter Consolidated in England. In this second stage the merchant bank had learned to cope with the new powers given to the Reserve Bank in 1961, with the issue of one-year treasury bills, with the Verwoerd credit squeeze in 1965 and with a law that confined the business of merchant banks to what was considered traditional banking business — a law that led Union Acceptances to form a holding company in 1967 that could be the legal owner of its non-bank business. Finally in the last stage, from 1969 to 1973, the bank was beset by management problems, that it failed to overcome, before it was taken over by Nedbank in 1973.