Salomon Brothers Has to Rebrand Its Revival as Citigroup Clings to Domain Name

(Bloomberg) — Salomon Brothers, a newly-formed investment bank intended as a revival of the storied Wall Street firm, is re-branding after Citigroup Inc. declined to give up the salomonbrothers.com web domain name.

The firm will call itself Salomon Encore and use the web address salomonencore.com, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Citigroup doesn’t own the Salomon Brothers trademark, but still holds the salomonbrothers.com domain name and refuses to relinquish it, a person familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified discussing non-public information.

Citigroup declined to comment. A database run by the non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers shows salomonbrothers.com is registered with a Citigroup subsidiary.

“Our new name, Salomon Encore, conveys both our modern approach — driven by innovation — and a demand for a return to a legacy of client service dating back to 1910,” Salomon Encore President R. Adam Smith said in the statement.

The original incarnation of Salomon Brothers became synonymous with Wall Street’s wealth and excesses in the 1980s thanks to books including “Liar’s Poker.” A series of deals in the late 1990s resulted in Salomon Brothers being absorbed into what eventually became modern-day Citigroup.

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