The founder maintained his connections back in Europe and cultivated the flow of German capital into American railroad investments in the post-Civil War era.
His wife was Jean Ickelheimer (1908–1994), a philanthropist and art collector (owning works by Picasso, Matisse, Degas, and Renoir).
Donald's brother, Pierre Stralem (known as Pete, 1911–1997) became a partner in 1942 and carried on with the firm into its later merged state.
[9] In 1904, the Berliner Handels-Gesellschaft, which was active in the sale of American securities in Germany had two partners at Hallgarten & Company in New York.
Hallgarten & Company claimed to be the first New York Stock Exchange firm to open an office in London.
In a controversial (and close) vote by the Admissions Committee it was turned down due to the Stock Exchange wishing to restrict US competitors from that market.
Shortly thereafter, in November 1987, Moseley Hallgarten & Estabrook announced it would quit the retail broking component of its operations.
In November 1987 the company signed a letter of intent providing for the acquisition by Gruntal & Co. of selected assets of Moseley, including its retail securities brokerage business and related assets, and its investment advisory business, for approximately $15 million in cash.
[12] This deal fell through and then the company negotiated a sale of its retail business to both Gruntal & Co. and Fahnestock.
[13] The plan was that Moseley would remain an institutional brokerage but difficult trading conditions and its connections to the so-called Wedtech scandal (the IPO of which it has underwritten)[14] led to the demise of the firm in February 1988.
The firm was refounded in New York in 2003 as Hallgarten & Company LLC by former directors of Polyconomics, an economic thinktank.
Hallgarten & Company is now exclusively dedicated to investment banking in the natural resources space.