West Coast Napoleons

"The test of a man is the fight he makes," is the motto that hangs in the San Francisco office of shy, chunky Banker Ashby Oliver Stewart. This is the sort of spirit to endear him to famed Banker Amadeo Peter Giannini, currently facing the biggest fight of his career, result of an SEC crackdown charging Giannini's Transamerica Corp. with a false and misleading securities registration (TIME, Dec. 12). In 1933 Banker Stewart took over from "A. P." the Bankitaly Mortgage Co. Last week he took over a "large block of stock" and the chairmanship of Bancamerica-Blair, investment house which "A. P." unloaded in accord with the banking law divorcing underwriting from deposit banking. Such deals have caused rumor that Bancamerica's new Chairman Stewart is merely a Giannini frontman. He is more than that. Born on a Missouri farm in 1881, he made a fortune in San Francisco real estate, has lately majored in mortgages and mines as well as land banks in which he has an investment of some $19,000,000. He claims to have had no vacation in 35 years, plays golf in the 70s and on his desk has a picture, not of Giannini, but of Napoleon.

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