FRNLEN

Our history

The his­tory of the Bank is closely bound up with the his­tory of the van de Put fam­ily. It be­gins in 1814, when Louis Jean Heir­man, fath­er-in-law of Jean-Bap­tiste van de Put, de­veloped his busi­ness as a busi­ness agent (Agent d’Af­faires). Since then, this wealth man­age­ment activ­ity – in the broad­est sense of the term – has been car­ried on by what are now 7 gen­er­a­tions of the founder’s dir­ect des­cend­ants with­in the van de Put family.

The entrance of the Bank at Van Putlei 74-76, seen from the street

More than 200 years of history

For more than 200 years the busi­ness has grown con­sid­er­ably, guided by an un­changed prin­ciple in­stilled by the founder – man­aging wealth with the care of a prudent par­ent – des­pite pro­found (r)evol­u­tions in the eco­nom­ic, polit­ic­al, so­cial and reg­u­lat­ory environment.

This sound, long-term ap­proach to wealth man­age­ment, the con­sid­er­able ef­forts (both vis­ible and dis­creet) of the many men and wo­men con­nec­ted with the Bank, and the trust placed in it by cli­ents, some­times for 5, 6 or even 7 gen­er­a­tions, make VAN DE PUT & CO a unique private bank in Bel­gi­um today.

An old calculating machine in its wooden case

Timeline

  1. 1814

    1st generation

    Louis Jean Heir­man sets up as a busi­ness agent (Agent d’Af­faires). On his death, he ad­vises his cli­ents to place their trust in one of his sons-in-law, Jean-Bap­tiste van de Put.

  2. 1815 Battle of Waterloo

  3. 1830 Cre­ation of Belgium

  4. 1850 Found­ing of the Na­tion­al Bank of Belgium

  5. Jean-Baptiste van de PutMarie Heirman

    1864

    2nd generation

    Jean-Bap­tiste van de Put in­tro­duces the name “VAN DE PUT – HEIR­MAN”. On his death, his wife, Mar­ie Heir­man (the founder’s daugh­ter), takes over the busi­ness in part­ner­ship with their son-in-law, Gust­ave De Vos.

  6. 1879

    3rd generation

    Aloïs (known as Louis), son of Mar­ie and Jean-Bap­tiste van de Put, takes over the busi­ness in part­ner­ship with his broth­er-in-law. At the be­gin­ning of the 20th cen­tury Louis was one of the most im­port­ant fin­an­ci­ers in An­t­werp. He held 12 dir­ect­or­ships in An­t­werp banks and a series of man­dates in oth­er in­dus­tri­al and com­mer­cial companies.

  7. 1914–1918 First World War

  8. 1919

    4th generation

    In­cor­por­a­tion of “VAN DE PUT – HEIR­MAN SNC”, with its re­gistered of­fice at Kip­dorp 49 in An­t­werp and whose ob­ject is to carry out “bank­ing op­er­a­tions”. The part­ners are then Bar­on Louis van de Put, his sons Jean, Au­guste and An­dré, and his son-in-law Paul Schobbens.

    1934: The busi­ness in­creas­ingly de­vel­ops into private bank­ing. From 1934, un­der its art­icles of as­so­ci­ation, the com­pany car­ries on the activ­ity of stock­broker (Agent de Change). Un­til 1990, stock­brokers (Agents de Change) were the only per­sons au­thor­ised to buy and sell se­cur­it­ies on the stock ex­change on be­half of oth­ers. On the death of Bar­on Jean van de Put in 1942, his wife, Madeleine Meeús, re­placed him as part­ner un­til 1949.

  9. 1934–1935 Bel­gian bank­ing crisis and cre­ation of the Bank­ing Commission

  10. 1939–1945 Second World War

  11. Michel van de Put

    1950

    5th generation

    Jean (5th gen.), son of Jean (4th gen.), joins his uncles as a partner.

    1961: Michel, Jean’s young­est broth­er, and his cous­in Gilles, son of An­dré, be­come man­aging part­ners. Michel would re­main act­ive in the com­pany un­til 2004 and was one of its share­hold­ers un­til 2013.

  12. 1969 Man’s first steps on the Moon

  13. 1973 First oil crisis

  14. 1982: Alain Ver­cruysse be­comes a man­aging part­ner along­side Michel and Gilles van de Put.

  15. Arnaud van de Put

    1990

    6th generation

    Eric and Arnaud, Michel’s sons, be­come man­aging part­ners. The com­pany takes on the status of a stock­brok­ing firm (So­ciété de Bourse).

    1996: Pas­cal Gendebi­en be­comes a man­aging partner.

    The com­pany takes on the status of a cred­it in­sti­tu­tion and is the first in Bel­gi­um to ob­tain the des­ig­na­tion of “Se­cur­it­ies Bank” (Banque de Titres). The com­pany de­cides to re­tain the un­lim­ited li­ab­il­ity of its part­ners by opt­ing for the status of a part­ner­ship lim­ited by shares (So­ciété en com­man­dite par ac­tions, SCA). In the same year the Bank merges with Finas­sur, an in­sur­ance broker owned by the same shareholders.

  16. 1998 Es­tab­lish­ment of the European Cent­ral Bank (ECB)

  17. 2004: Max­im­i­li­en de Was­sei­ge be­comes a man­aging partner.

  18. 2007 The Mar­kets in Fin­an­cial In­stru­ments Dir­ect­ive (Mi­FID) comes into force

  19. 2008 Glob­al fin­an­cial crisis

  20. 2011 Cre­ation of the FSMA, the Fin­an­cial Ser­vices and Mar­kets Authority

  21. Nicolas van de PutAlexis van de Put

    2016

    7th generation

    Nic­olas, Arnaud’s son, be­comes a man­aging part­ner after hav­ing been head of Risk Man­age­ment and Com­pli­ance at the Bank since the end of 2012.
    In 2019, his broth­er Alex­is be­comes a man­aging part­ner after work­ing at the Bank for 2 years.

    2019: Charles-Ant­oine de Belle­froid be­comes a man­aging partner.

  22. 2020 COV­ID-19 pandemic

  23. 2023: Fol­low­ing the re­form of the Bel­gian Code of Com­pan­ies and As­so­ci­ations (2019) and of the Bel­gian bank­ing law (2023), which among oth­er things ab­ol­ished the part­ner­ship lim­ited by shares, the Bank ad­opts the leg­al form of a pub­lic lim­ited com­pany (So­ciété An­onyme). From then on, the part­ners at the time, to­geth­er with Ben­oit Marinus, are mem­bers of the Ex­ec­ut­ive Com­mit­tee. The Bank sets up its first Board of Dir­ect­ors, with 5 non-ex­ec­ut­ive dir­ect­ors and Yves Her­inckx as its first Chairman.

  24. 2025: Maxime Roberti de Winghe be­comes a part­ner and Sec­ret­ary-Gen­er­al of the Bank.

  25. 2026

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