Cassatt & Company was a Philadelphia-based investment banking and brokerage firm founded in 1872.

The Cassatt name was dropped in 1940 when the newly combined firm acquired New Orleans–based Fenner & Beane.

Pierce & Co., the largest brokerage firm in the U.S. at the time about a potential merger.

Pierce began discussions with Merrill Lynch about a potential merger.

[6] Following the death of Edmund C. Lynch in 1938, Winthrop Smith began discussions with Charles E. Merrill, who owned a minority interest in E.A.