"[1] About three years later they absorbed another brokerage and became Halle & Stieglitz, Filor Bullard Inc.[2] The merger more than doubled their count of domestic offices, which went from eight[1] to eighteen,[2] "and foreign offices in Paris and Lugano, Switzerland.
Several hundred public investors who held Empress stock but were unlikely to fight individually benefitted from Halle & Stieglitz taking this case to court,[10] and they persisted even though the federal judge seemed to be unwilling to intervene.
[11] Empress was founded essentially as a family trust fund, but expanded to take in money from outside investors, and then turned around to cut losses, seemingly, according to the lawsuit,[12] to benefit themselves at the expense of the outsiders.
[9] The loss was significant: the stock had opened at $14.50 per share and Empress was offering to buy it back at $4.50/share.
Roy Neuberger, hired by Halle & Stieglitz in 1929 as a "runner" for $15 per week,[13] met his future wife in 1930, a year later, as a fellow employee.