Salomon Brothers, Inc., was an American multinational bulge bracket investment bank headquartered in New York City, renowned for its dominance in bond trading and fixed-income securities. Founded in 1910 by brothers Arthur, Herbert, and Percy Salomon, the firm initially focused on trading government securities and evolved into one of the five largest investment banking enterprises in the United States. During the 1980s and 1990s, it achieved significant profitability on Wall Street, driven by aggressive trading strategies and innovations in areas like mortgage-backed securities. Under the leadership of CEO and Chairman John Gutfreund, often nicknamed 'the King of Wall Street,' Salomon Brothers became a symbol of the high-stakes, high-reward culture of finance, with notable alumni including Michael Bloomberg, who began his career there in 1966 and rose to partner before founding Bloomberg L.P. The firm faced a major controversy in 1991 when it was implicated in a Treasury bond auction rigging scandal led by trader Paul Mozer, resulting in regulatory investigations by the SEC and U.S. Department of Justice, fines exceeding $290 million, and Gutfreund's resignation. Despite the setback, Salomon Brothers recovered and continued operations until its acquisition by the Travelers Group in 1997 for $9.2 billion, after which it was integrated into what became Citigroup following the Travelers-Citibank merger in 1998. The acquisition ended Salomon Brothers' independent existence, but its influence on modern investment banking, particularly in fixed-income markets, remains significant.