Who Owns Charles Schwab?

Charles R. Schwab founded the company in San Francisco in 1971 as First Commander Corporation, an investment newsletter and discount brokerage service, renaming it Charles Schwab & Co. in 1973. The SEC's abolition of fixed commissions on May 1, 1975 created the discount brokerage industry, and Schwab undercut established firms to become its defining brand, offering lower prices, 24-hour quote service, and later no-fee IRAs.

Bank of America bought the firm in 1983 for approximately $55 million. Schwab bought it back in 1987 for about $280 million and took it public on the NYSE that September, weeks before the October crash. The 1990s cemented the brand's scale: the 1992 Mutual Fund OneSource platform gave customers access to hundreds of fund families, and early adoption of internet trading through e.Schwab kept it competitive through the dot-com era.

The company built its modern structure through acquisitions. It bought U.S. Trust in 2000 and sold it in 2007 after integration disappointed. It acquired optionsXpress in 2011 for about $1 billion. In October 2019 it eliminated online equity commissions, a move that forced the entire industry to follow. The defining deal was the November 2019 agreement to acquire TD Ameritrade, completed in October 2020 in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $22 billion. The merger added roughly 12 million accounts and the thinkorswim platform, and integration concluded in 2023 and 2024 as accounts migrated and the TD Ameritrade brand was retired.

The brand faced its hardest test in March 2023, when the regional banking panic spotlighted unrealized losses in Schwab Bank's bond portfolio and clients moved sweep cash into higher-yielding money funds. The company spent 2024 and 2025 normalizing funding and returned to record results: $23.9 billion in FY2025 net revenue, $8.9 billion in GAAP net income, and 4.7 million new accounts. Founder Chuck Schwab, now in his late eighties, remains co-chairman alongside CEO Rick Wurster, who took over in January 2025.