Oliver Jessel
City financier who came to prominence as a pioneer of the unit trust movement
DESCRIBED BY his friend Jim Slater, founder of the Slater Walker Group, as a “money man,” Oliver Jessel, who has died aged 87, was a takeover player with a Midas touch. A debonair, pipe-smoking 1960s manabout-town, Jessel had expensive tastes, eating in the best restaurants and being chauffeur-driven to work.
His name was often linked with Slater’s and by their mid 30s both men were regarded with awe for their determination to improve British industry and for their financial success.
Following the breakdown of their businesses and personal fortunes in the aftermath of the stock market and “secondary banking” crisis, resulting from the tripling of crude oil prices in December 1973, both were seen in a different light: as asset-strippers and share dealers who had fuelled the boom that made the bust inevitable. The self-assured Jessel did not always heed advice. As his wife Gloria put it: “He was living in a world where failure had no consequences, capitalism without bankruptcy was like Judaism without hell!”
At its zenith in 1972, the Jessel group of companies was worth over £500 million, but the liquidation of its life assurance company, London Indemnity & General Insurance in October 1974 led to its collapse. Jessel’s long run of luck had run out and he largely disappeared from public life.
Oliver Richard Jessel was born in New Zealand, the son of Dick Jessel, a highly decorated destroyer captain in the Royal Navy. They were descended from Zadok Aaron Jessel, a successful London merchant, whose youngest son Sir George was the first Jew to be appointed Solicitor General.
Oliver’s mother Winnie also had an eminent Anglo-Jewish heritage. Her grandfather Marcus Samuel (the 1st Viscount Bearsted) had founded the Shell Transport & Trading Company, which would become Royal Dutch Shell .
Oliver was educated at Rugby. After National Service in the navy he studied for the Bar, but turned to business, setting up an investment company in 1954 to manage his inheritance .
He married Gloria Holden in 1950 and his first foray into business was self-service grocery stores in the West End. But in 1960 he found his metier in the City sourcing “penny shares” in companies that were both undervalued and undermanaged. By 1965, with the flotation of Jessel Securities on the stock exchange he used his investment holding company and small merchant bank to build a stake-holding position in businesses with a view to launching a takeover. His crowning achievement resulted in the merger and reorganisation of two of the UK’s largest steelmaking conglomerates, Johnson and Firth Brown in 1973. Jessel would bet on others’ bid battles, reaping either huge windfalls or hefty losses. Meanwhile, the Jessel Britannia unit trust group had grown into a brand leader in the fund management sector until the stock market crash in 1974.
Jessel switched a large proportion of unit-holders’ funds out of equities and into gold, commodities and cash. After the demise of Jessel Securities, he worked in corporate finance as chairman of numerous smaller companies. He is survived by Gloria, their children, Dinah, Caroline, Serena, Rosamund, Simon and Samantha and eight grandchildren. GEOFFREY H BUCHLER
Oliver Jessel: born August 24, 1929. Died: June 21,2017