Kleinwort Benson

Kleinwort Benson is one of the most distinguished international investment banks in the City of London, becoming part of the Dresdner Bank Group in 1995. This is the story of how the Kleinworts and the Bensons emerged from medieval beginnings to seek their fortunes in Hamburg, Cuba, and Liverpool, before arriving in the 1850s in London. There they founded two very different merchant banks, which merged in 1967 to create Kleinwort Benson Lonsdale, later the Kleinwort Benson Group. Jehanne Wake was given unrestricted access to the bank's archives and staff and has drawn upon a wealth of original sources to furnish this lively history of the members of two banking dynasties and their boardroom successors.