Brian Winterflood: The broker who has helped shape the City over 60 years, including by blocking 2000 first exchange merger attempt
With not long to go before the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Boerse find out whether their third formal attempt to merge is successful, it was perhaps bold of Xavier Rolet, the French boss of the UK company, to invite Brian Winterflood to open the market last week.
Celebrating his 80th birthday and retirement from the City after more than 60 years, Winterflood stood alongside Rolet and rang the bell last Tuesday morning.
Later that day, he was all smiles again as he chatted to Deutsche Boerse boss Carsten Kengeter, a fellow Wimbledon resident, at an event at Merchant Taylors’ Hall in Canada.
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Both Rolet and Kengeter could have been excused for feeling a little uneasy. Winterflood, the founder of market maker Winterflood Securities, is widely credited with playing an instrumental role in blocking their companies’ attempt to merge in 2000.
Small broker revolt
Winterflood, who is also credited with playing a key role in founding the Alternative Investment Market (Aim), led a consortium of small brokers, who at the time controlled around a third of the London Stock Exchange’s shares, in scrutinising the proposed tie-up. They were concerned that the deal would be bad news for Aim.
On 12 September 2000, after months of pressure from the small brokers, and facing a hostile bid from Sweden’s OM Gruppen, the London Stock Exchange gave up on its bid to merge with Deutsche Boerse.
Winterflood speaks with passion about playing his part in averting the 2000 “invasion”. But as well as posing less of a threat now, he appears more relaxed about the latest deal, which the exchanges are aiming to complete in the coming months.
“Now, we don’t have any votes,” he tells City PM “It’s a public company, they’ve already agreed the takeover, and to be perfectly candid: I don’t think I mind any more.”
Though he does add: “I’m slightly annoyed that we’ve got a Frenchman selling the English silver to a German.”
Entering the City
Winterflood’s father was a bus driver and also owned some small cafes. Not wanting to be a chef or a bus driver himself, and with his father unable to pay his school fees, Winterflood first arrived in the City from Uxbridge at 15 years old.
He started work in 1953 as a messenger and office boy for stockbroker Greener Dreyfus & Co, where one of his roles was to fill up senior workers’ inkwells. He made his way up the gopher ranks, first to a “red button” then to “blue button” status (“which was like winning the pools”), before being called up for National Service.
On returning to the City, Winterflood rose up through the ranks of stockjobbers Bisgood Bishop before being forced out after it was taken over by County NatWest in 1986. In 1988, he founded market maker Winterflood Securities with 37 County NatWest staff.
The takeover of Winterflood by Close Brothers in 1993 was smooth, and the founder remained on at the helm of Winterflood Securities, where he is now life president.
Aim concerns
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While succeeding with his own businesses, Winterflood is also credited with championing the Unlisted Securities Market, which has now become Aim.
He feels the market has, to an extent, “lost its way” in recent years, with low quality companies being allowed to float, but Winterflood remains optimistic about its prospects.
When the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Boerse announced their latest bid to merge last year, there were immediate concerns about the future of Aim.
“There are worries now,” he says. “But I think you’ll find that there are enough people out there who don’t want it to die. And… an alternative home will be found for it if they don’t want it.”
Winterflood would still rather the merger didn’t go through this time. However, he is more laid back, partly because he feels London will have an important role for the merged company.
As well as the UK housing the legal headquarters of the merged company, Kengeter last week also spoke of how he would like the merger to help introduce a more “Anglo-Saxon conviction” to the rest of Europe.
Winterflood, a proud and non-remorseful Brexiteer, no doubt enjoyed this comment.
“There’s not a lot going for Europe, in my opinion,” he says. “And the Anglo-Saxon world, to use that phrase, is becoming much more as it was before people tried to blacken its name.”