1918 1918 Capital Family Investment Office

Family Vision

Stewarding capital for future generations

A letter to the generations that follow — where this began, what was learned paying it back, and what the capital is actually for.

Where it began

Milton P. Levy Sr. began our family’s business in 1918. He died young and unexpectedly, leaving the company in debt. His sons — Milton Jr., Irvine, and Lester Sr. — had just come home from World War II. They had lived through the Depression and knew what hardship looked like. They went to work, not knowing what the future held, and paid back what their father owed.

From that experience came a simple discipline: grow through cash flow, not debt.

Treat the people you work with as family. Build for the long term. The third generation — Lester Jr., Walter, Ann, Robert, and John — inherited those principles, built upon them, and carried NCH Corp forward to its merger.

A long brick building with NATIONAL DISINFECTANT CO — SANITARY CHEMICALS painted across its end wall, cars of the period parked along the kerb and a man walking past the loading doors.
National Disinfectant CompanyThe business Milton P. Levy Sr. began in 1918, which became NCH Corporation.
Ruth and Milton P. Levy Sr. photographed outdoors arm in arm, both in hats, he in a three-piece suit.
Ruth & Milton P. Levy Sr.He started the company in 1918.
Three young brothers sitting on a porch swing beside their grandmother, the smallest holding a cap on his lap.
The brothers as boysIrvine, Milton Jr. and Lester Sr., with their grandmother.
The three Levy brothers as grown men in dinner jackets and bow ties, two of them wearing carnations.
Irvine, Lester Sr. & Milton Jr.The sons who came home from the war and paid back what their father owed.
Bertha Rose and Lester Sr. walking arm in arm along a city pavement, both smiling, beneath an awning marked 128.
Bertha Rose & Lester Sr.
Bertha Rose in her wedding dress and veil, holding hands with her mother and father on either side of her in a doorway.
Bertha Rose, with Walter & Ann MarcusHer parents. Their names carry into the third generation.

To those who come next

To our children, and theirs after them: protect what you’re given, but not for its own sake. Capital is an opportunity and a responsibility. Invest in each other — in the people who work alongside you, and in those who need a hand — with the same care you give to growing and protecting the family’s capital.

What you inherit should give you opportunity, not define you. Use it to build something of your own, to help others, and to leave more than you were left, so your future families are stronger in the generations to come.

I’ve left you a great opportunity. It is your job to be the guardians of what generations before you built, and of the generations still to come. Use it wisely. Add to it. My goal for you is to pass on not only the capital, but the values that created it.

So the story does not end with you, but goes on.

Since 1918

01

About the office

How the family office is organized, and how it thinks about continuity.

Read about us 02

Our Philosophy

The same discipline, written out as the commitments we invest by.

Read the principles