The man stepping into Chuck Prince’s shoes is the globetrotting Sir Win Bischoff, a City grandee in just about every sense of the word.
Born in 1941 in Aachen, Germany, Mr Bischoff moved with his parents to South Africa in 1955 and later graduated from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
Bar a short early stint at Chase Manhattan in New York, just about all of his career has been spent at Schroders, once a family-owned merchant bank and asset manager called J Henry Schroder & Co, which Mr Bischoff joined in 1966. He worked for the bank in Hong Kong before returning to the UK in 1983 and moving up to become chief executive ahead of ‘Big Bang’ in 1986. His chairmanship of Schroders came in 1995.
Mr Bischoff negotiated the division of the firm in 2000, with what was then Salomon Smith Barney acquiring Schroders’ corporate advisory division; the asset management side remains as an independent London-listed entity. With Citigroup then acquiring Salomon, the Schroders man prospered - despite the overt Americanisation of the group. Mr Bischoff became chairman of Citigroup Europe, the same year he was knighted. Most recently, he helped steer through Citi’s acquisition this year of Egg, the credit card company for £575m.
Mr Bischoff has been a non-executive of McGraw Hill, the education and media group since 1999. He is also a non-executive director at Land Securities, the property company; Eli Lilly, the pharmaceuticals group; and Prudential, the insurer.
At 66, he still racks up over 100 flights a year, flying to New York for Citi’s Monday morning strategy meeting, and maintaining homes in London, Italy and Gloucestershire.
