Once upon a time, the departure of David Mayhew from Cazenove might have been heralded as the end of the road for the Queen's broker.
But, the sale of the old-school broking house to Wall Street titan JP Morgan in 2004 means that the decision by the septuagenarian to stand down after more than 40 years is less of a problem.
His sage advice, bursting contact book and chain of cigarette smoke will of course be missed. But the purchase by JP Morgan meant that the Cazenove operation became less the Mayhew show and more about adapting to a rapidly changing City where none of the brokers like Cazenove had survived on their own.
Mayhew, whose reputation for honesty and integrity survived charges – later dropped – during the Guinness takeover, had continued to ensure the Old Etonian attitude of Cazenove was preserved under American ownership. The broker has lost a few clients in the FTSE 100 but still acts as the eyes and ears of the management in the sometimes precarious relationship with shareholders for 35 of the 100 biggest companies on the stock market. Mayhew has not been involved in management for the last couple of years, particularly since the transaction in 2009 that allowed JP Morgan to complete a full takeover.
But the fate of Mayhew, and the firm he has been synonymous with for four decades, could have been so different. When Cazenove was trying to raise fresh capital and throw off its traditional partnership status at the start of the last decade, it tried to float on the stock market. This was, after all, its very own area of expertise. The share sale had to be aborted: a major embarrassment at the time but the alternative sale to JP Morgan proved to be a much better long-term option. Mayhew is also hanging around for a bit, remaining on the payroll of JP Morgan for a while yet.
