Hitchens, Harrison & Co, the London-based private client stockbroker, has acquired Astaire & Partners, also a London-based private client st...

Hitchens, Harrison & Co, the London-based private client stockbroker, has acquired Astaire & Partners, also a London-based private client stockbroker, according to a source close to Hitchens. Hitchens apparently paid £5 million ($8.7 million) for Astaire which was originally owned by Credit Lyonnais, but was bought-out by management led by its chairman Steven Astaire in 1990. Hitchens was itself subject to a partial buy-out earlier this year, when management bought a 30 per cent stake in London’s oldest stockbroker. Seventy per cent of the firm is still owned by South African firm Sanlam, which took over the company from the old partnership in 2002.