New London-Based Family Office Holbein Partners Takes Wing

Tom Burroughes

18 June 2013

The former manager of the Rolling Stones is among several wealth management luminaries to be involved in a newly-minted family office – Holbein Partners – based near London’s Hyde Park.

The launch of Holbein Partners comes at a time when family offices and private investment offices continue to be created and expanded, catering to a demand for independent advice at a time when some UHNW individuals are looking to restructure their arrangements after the 2008 market crash.

The three managing partners are Steven Blakey, founder of European Credit Management, a specialist fixed income business currently owned by Wells Fargo; Mark Cunningham, formerly a managing director at Helix Associates, a private equity advisory business, whose sale to Jefferies, the US investment bank, he negotiated and where he remained before founding Cunningham Loewenstein Asset Management in 2010, and; Stephen Jones, the family office’s chief investment officer. Jones was former CIO and board member of Principal Investment Management.

Holbein has been created by melding Cunningham Loewenstein Asset Management, a private investment office, and the wealth management business of MaxCap Partners.

MaxCap (to be renamed MxP Partners) will continue to operate as a regulated entity, offering Holbein clients advice and asset management services in respect of direct private equity investments, a statement from Holbein Partners said.

The firm describes itself as a “family office providing a wide range of investment and strategic advisory services (such as family governance and succession planning) to ultra high net worth families, individuals, trusts and foundations”.

Other senior executive partners are Andrew Rodger, previously head of family office at Stonehage, and Andrew Knott, a partner at MaxCap, and who has over 27 years’ experience in investment management. He has also worked at UBS Wealth Management as an executive director, among other organisations.

Partners

Among other partners: Prince Rupert Loewenstein, president, well-known as a financial advisor in the entertainment industry, who famously transformed the fortunes of the Rolling Stones. Before establishing Rupert Loewenstein Holdings, he was joint chief executive of Leopold Joseph & Sons, the merchant bank he acquired in 1962;

Michael George, founder and managing partner of MaxCap, the family office he established following the sale of his family’s Weetabix food business. He was a director at Electra Partners focusing on private equity and head of wealth management at Durlacher;

Princess Dora Loewenstein, founder in 1992 of Dora Loewenstein Associates, a specialist event management company. Her earlier career was spent in New York, London and Paris in television advertising and production, and in business management for musicians. She is a member of the Appeal Board of the NSPCC.

The firm said it aims to stand apart as the interests of partners and clients are “exceptionally closely aligned, sharing the same approach to investment and paying the same fees”. It said the partners at the family office account for a “substantial proportion” of Holbein’s assets under management.

The family office is located at 4‐5 Grosvenor Place and is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.