It was in 1891 that Caesar formed a partnership, based in New York, with George Rodgers MacDougall, creating the firm ‘Czarnikow, MacDougall’ as the North American branch of Caesar’s London brokerage ‘C. Czarnikow Ltd.’. George was the son of Samuel MacDougall and Mary Allan (née Rodger(s)) who had married at West parish in Greenock, Renfrewshire on November 14th 1839 [IGI: Batch M119577]. He was born on July 22nd 1843 and baptised at Greenock on August 20th [IGI: Batch 7329014]. These early records spell the surname as ‘McDougall’ but in adult life George always spelled it ‘MacDougall’. By 1891 he had become an accomplished and respected figure in Greenock and was effectively headhunted by Caesar to lead the new operation in New York. He was immensely successful there, turning the firm into one of the largest sugar trading businesses in the world. In New York he enjoyed high esteem in both the sugar trade and in society at large.

In 1897 another significant player entered the scene, namely Manuel Rionda y Polledo, usually referred to simply as ‘Manuel Rionda’. Two older brothers of his – born, like him, in Spain – had built up a major business dealing in Cuban sugar. Meanwhile, Manuel had established a strong reputation as a Wall Street sugar trader, having spent ten years up to 1896 working for ‘J. M. Ceballos & Co.’. He now left that company and was taken on by ‘Czarnikow, MacDougall’ as a commission agent. By 1898 his brothers Joaquin and Francisco were both dead. The former had drowned in 1889 and the latter had died in New York in November 1898 – he had fled with his family from Cuba, whose civil war had led to insurgents destroying the sugar-cane plantations there and bringing Cuba’s sugar industry to ruin. Manuel now began to pick up the pieces in Cuba, putting in significant investment to rebuild its sugar trade and enabling ‘Czarnikow, MacDougall’ to become the dominant company by 1903.