Founder of Only Black-Owned Stock Firm Dead at 46

NEW YORK (AP) _ Travers J. Bell Jr., the founder and owner of the only black-owned member firm of the New York Stock Exchange, has died of an apparent heart attack at age 46.

He died Monday at his home in Manhattan.

Bell started the Wall Street securities firm of Daniels & Bell Inc. in 1971 with just $175,000. The company has grown to a net worth of $15 million, specializing in underwriting securities of new minority-owned businesses. The firm also joined large distribution syndicates formed by other investment banks.

Bell was chairman of the New York district of the Securities Industry Association, the main lobbying group for the industry.

He grew up in a housing development on Chicago’s South Side and got a messenger’s job at Dempsey Tegler & Co., where his father worked in the operations department.

Educated at Washington University in St. Louis and the New York Institute of Finance, Bell started at Dempsey Tegler as a messenger and rose to become a vice president before striking out on his own.

He is survived by his wife, Laura; a son, Darryl; a daughter, Rhonda; and his father, Travers J. Bell Sr.

The funeral will be in Chicago on Friday.