In 1919 he had organized Bancitaly Corp. as a launching pad for statewide expansion. That was succeeded in 1928 by TransAmerica Corp., a holding company with wide interests in financial services, including some overseas banks. That same year he bought Bank of America in New York, one of the city's oldest lending institutions.

Giannini retired again in 1930 and moved to Europe, convinced that his successor would carry on in his spirit. But during the Great Depression, TransAmerica management switched focus. Feeling betrayed, Giannini returned to retake control. He had always encouraged employees and depositors to become shareholders of the bank. To win a 1932 proxy fight, he knocked on doors again, getting all those working-class shareholders to give him their votes.

He then consolidated TransAmerica's California bank holdings under the Bank of America name, which would survive when regulators forced TransAmerica to break up in the '50s, just a few years after A.P.'s death.

When Giannini died at age 79, his estate was worth less than $500,000. It was purely by choice. He could have been a billionaire but disdained great wealth, believing it would make him lose touch with the people he wanted to serve. For years he accepted virtually no pay, and upon being granted a surprise $1.5 million bonus one year promptly gave it all to the University of California. "Money itch is a bad thing," he once said. "I never had that trouble."

Daniel Kadlec writes a column about personal finance and Wall Street forTIME

< < Previous  1 | 2 | 3

April 2, 1928	April 15, 1946
Larger Cover	Larger Cover