Cazenove (stock broker)

Cazenove was a British stockbroker and investment bank, founded in 1823 by Philip Cazenove. It was one of the UK's last independent investment banks and one of the last to remain a private partnership. The investment banking business entered into a joint venture with JPMorgan Chase in 2004, and the fund management business Cazenove Capital Management spun off in 2005. In 2009, JPMorgan Chase acquired the remainder of the investment banking business. Cazenove Capital Management was acquired by Schroders in 2013.

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The Partnership was well known for its "blue-blooded" reputation and its complete aversion to publicity. It was one of the most successful brokers and corporate advisers in London, being described by the Financial Times as "dominant"^[1] and as having an "aura".^[2]

The company has its roots in the early Huguenot financiers who left France for Geneva in 1685 after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which established Catholicism as the state religion of France. Among those were members of the Cazenove family, who later left Geneva for the UK seeking wealth and freedom in the City of London.

In 1819 Philip Cazenove first joined the business of his brother-in-law John Francis Menet (John Menet had married Philip Cazenove's sister Louisa in 1805). Cazenove and Menet become partners, and in 1823 the firm of Cazenove started. After Menet died, Cazenove entered into a partnership with Joseph Laurence and Charles Pearce.^[3]

In 1854 Cazenove branched out on his own, and later he formed a new partnership with his son and nephew. The stockbroker firm continued to develop and by the 1930s had become one of the leading stockbroking partnerships in London.

The company played a major part as advisor in most of Margaret Thatcher's UK Government's privatisation issues in the 1980s.

In 2003/04 Cazenove had a turnover of £251.4m ($452m) and was composed of:

• JPMorgan Cazenove: a joint venture, established in 2004, that combined Cazenove's investment banking operations with JPMorgan's UK investment banking business. This business was fully acquired by JPMorgan in 2009.
• Cazenove Capital Management: £7.6bn in assets under management. This business continued independently, and was acquired by Schroders in July 2013.^[9]
• Cazenove Private Equity: was spun out as a private equity firm and would become DFJ Esprit.
• Cazenove Asia Limited was the regional office of Cazenove in the Asia-Pacific region, with offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore. This business was acquired by Standard Chartered PLC in February 2009.

The last Cazenove to work for the company was Bernard Cazenove, formerly head of the fund management business. He retired in December 2004, just before the JPMorgan merger.^[10] Bernard is a direct descendant of the founder of the firm: he is Philip Cazenove's great-great-great-grandson and his father and great-grandfather were also partners.^{[citation needed]}

Although the firm refused to comment on its relations to the Royal Family, it was widely assumed that it was the appointed stockbroker to Her Majesty The Queen.^[11]