Wilhelm von Finck (6 February 1848 – 4 April 1924) was a German

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

and

banker A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

. Finck was a co-founder of the German companies

Allianz Allianz SE ( , ) is a German Multinational corporation, multinational financial services company headquartered in Munich, Germany. Its core businesses are insurance and asset management. Allianz is the world's largest List of largest insurance ...

and

Munich Re Munich Re Group or Munich Reinsurance Company () is a German Multinational corporation, multinational insurance company based in Munich, Germany. It is the world's largest reinsurance, reinsurer. ERGO Insurance Group, ERGO, a subsidiary of Munich ...

Life

In Frankfurt am Main, he was a student at the Hasselsche Institut. He worked first for German company Bankhaus Philipp Nicolaus Schmidt. Since 1869 he worked for Nestle, Andreae & Co. in London and since 1870 for Merck Finck & Co. in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

. By 1879, together with his brother August Finck, who replaced the departing general Adolf Karl Ludwig Christian, the previous authorized representative Wilhelm von Finck already held a large part of the bank assets of Merck Finck & Co. Together with German entrepreneur Theodor von Cramer-Klett and Carl von Thieme he founded company

in April 1880. German company Allianz AG was founded in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

on 5 February 1890 by then director of the Munich Reinsurance Company (Munich Re) Carl von Thieme (a native of Erfurt, whose father was the director of Thuringia) and Wilhelm von Finck.

Personal life

In 1886, he married Marie Fäustle and they had four children. One of his children was German businessman August von Finck Sr. (1898-1980).

Awards

Merit Order of the Bavarian Crown The Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown () was an order of merit of the Kingdom of Bavaria established by King Maximilian Joseph I on 19 March 1808. The motto of the order is "Virtus et Honos" ('Courage and Honour'). The order was awarded in s ...

Literature

* Bernhard Hoffmann: Wilhelm von Finck 1848-1924. Lebensbild eines deutschen Bankiers, Verlag Beck, München 1953. * Bernhard Hoffmann: Finck, Wilhelm Peter von. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). Band 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, , p. 150 f. (Digitalisat). * Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Adelslexikon Band III, Band 61 der Gesamtreihe, C. A. Starke Verlag, Limburg (Lahn) 1975, ISSN 0435-2408. * Genealogisches Handbuch des in Bayern immatrikulierten Adels, Band XXV; 2004. 62, Vereinigung des Adels in Bayern. Verlag : Degener, * Marita Krauss: Die Finks. Eine Dynastie der Hochfinanz zwischen Wirtschaft und Politik, in: Marita Krauss (Hrsg.): Die bayerischen Kommerzienräte - Eine deutsche Wirtschaftselite von 1880 bis 1928, Volk Verlag, München 2016, p. 258–264.

References

External links

Haus der Bayrischen Geshichte: Wilhelm von Finck

Zeit.de: Sorgen eines Milliardärs (german)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Finck, Wilhelm von 1848 births 1924 deaths Members of the Bavarian Reichsrat 19th-century German businesspeople 20th-century German businesspeople Businesspeople in insurance German company founders Finck family Businesspeople from Hesse People from Wetteraukreis Allianz people