The last of the City’s frequent flyers

When Win Bischoff and his colleagues Robert Swannell and David Challen threw a party last month to celebrate 100 years of working together at Schroders and Citigroup, it was quite a bash. Not only did it draw the cream of FTSE-100 chiefs — Sir Chris Gent, Sir Nigel Rudd and Stuart Rose, to name just three — but the throng in the Victoria and Albert Museum included a fair scattering of rival investment bankers. ‘You only have to play golf with Win to know how competitive he is, but he’s always worked well with other bankers,’ said one guest.

Seven years earlier to the day, the tall, stylish Bischoff had sealed the sale of the family-controlled Schroders investment banking arm to the vast American Citigroup — a ‘bulge bracket’ bank that had already gobbled up Salomon Brothers and Smith Barney. Eighteen key people at Schroders had committed themselves to stay with the merged group and, thanks to Bischoff’s charisma, most of them are still there today.