Kleinwort Benson - Big Bang

Big Bang

In October 1986, the City of London was deregulated overnight so that the closed shop of stockbrokers and stockjobbers no longer had a monopoly of dealing in stocks. Kleinwort Benson, with some apprehension, decided to enter the securities market in part as a defensive move to prevent competitors with a distribution capability from eroding its corporate finance business. The move also enabled Kleinwort Benson to distribute the new issues it originated rather than relying on a third party. Although, like many other banks at the time, Kleinwort Benson contemplated buying a jobbing firm in order to get into the market, in the end they were saved from having to do so by the defection of a number of senior market-makers from Wedd Durlacher Mordaunt as it was acquired by Barclays Bank. In April 1986 Kleinwort Benson itself acquired Grievson Grant, after originally being engaged to find an acquirer for the firm.

In July 1995 it was bought by Dresdner Bank creating Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, later Dresdner Kleinwort.

In 2006 Allianz bought Dresdner AG and Kleinwort Benson, as part of that deal, and becoming the parent of that group of key financial entities.

In January 2009 Dresdner AG was sold to Commerzbank and again Kleinwort Benson was included in that deal and was made all the more attractive to the biggest financial provider in Germany. Due to the financial crisis this parentage was short lived as the German government, after providing an injection of cash to Commerbank stipulated that they must sell all non-German entities. This included Kleinwort Benson along with a number of other successful financial institutions who were the most profitable in the group.

Takeover

In October 2009, after much speculation over who would succeed in the race to buy Kleinwort Benson, RHJ International became the new owners.