Veteran City broker lured to join Oriel

CORPORATE broking veteran Peter Meinertzhagen has been lured out of semi-retirement to join Oriel Securities, the broker run by his ex-colleague Simon Bragg, as an adviser.

Meinertzhagen is best known in the City for advising some of Britain’s biggest companies during his 17-year tenure at the helm of Hoare Govett, now ABN Amro Hoare Govett and owned by Royal Bank of Scotland. He previously worked on the spin-off of Vodafone and the merger  to create pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline, as well as having been behind the break-up of building materials firm Hanson.

He officially retired from Hoare Govett in 2007, but returned to the City in May as one of a string of high-profile advisers to niche investment boutique Hanson Westhouse, which is coming to Aim via a reverse takeover of Jersey-based Chinese investment trust SovGEM.

At Hoare Govett, Meinertzhagen worked for a decade with Oriel chief executive Simon Bragg, before the latter left in 2002 to set up Oriel with HSBC’s Adrian McMillan and former Blue Oar boss Andrew Monk.

The firm is jointly owned by its 80-plus staff and offers corporate finance, corporate broking, research and sales and trading services.