Sir Win Bischoff 1941 - 2023

Andrew Boyle

My colleagues and I were saddened to read of the death of Sir Win Bischoff on 25th April. He was an inspiration to the founders of LGB when they worked at Schroders. He also supported the development of our company by becoming a shareholder when we raised capital in 2013.

Here is a link to his obituary in the Daily Telegraph. It correctly emphasises his status as a relationship banker. This appeared to come naturally but probably took considerable effort to achieve. He was an outsider in the City when he became Schroders’ Group CEO at a relatively young age. His secretary told me that she had to cajole the great and the good to accept his invitations to lunch and dinner. In later years he would spread his arms along a meeting room sofa and give people he met an insight into the world of international finance. He was impressive. I am sure his presence inflated the price Citigroup paid for Schroders’ investment bank in 2000. This was around 45 times Schroders’ market cap in 1980. What an extraordinary period it was.

My first encounter with Sir Win in 1986 was a disaster. I had to coordinate a meeting with a Japanese company whose chairman was in London for the closing ceremony of a bond issue. I sent a memo with the briefest of details. Sir Win was furious when he arrived and the meeting was terrible. He didn’t know who the clients were. Afterwards, my director was called to his office to be admonished severely. He passed this on to me. As a consequence my meetings notes became the most diligent in Schroders and I arranged many successful meetings for him during my ten years in Japan in the 1990s. After one meeting at a Japanese life insurance company, I received a call the same day with a mandate to arrange a $100m medium term note private placement. I followed Sir Win to Citigroup but I was definitely not one of the 18 colleagues mentioned in the obituary. Still being in Tokyo, I literally had to sing for my supper. I was pleased to make it back to Citigroup in Canary Wharf and observe him in what looked like a sinecure. What happened after I left to establish LGB in 2005 was bewildering for everyone. I admired his stamina throughout the chaos.

 

My colleagues and I are pleased to have been associated with him and hope that putting the client first is also the core component of LGB’s DNA.