BISCHOFF, Sir Win(fried) Franz Wilhelm 1941-2023
Richard R
He was s of Paul Helmut BISCHOFF 1912-95 and Hildegard KüHNE 1915-. He m 1972 Rosemary Elizabeth 1945-2018 d of Hon Leslie John LEATHERS 1911-2002 (s of 1st Viscount LEATHERS 1883-1965) and Elizabeth Stella 1914-2006 d of Thomas Stanley NASH 1884-1964 of Haywards Heath, Sussex by his 1 June 1910 m (St Margaret’s, Westminster) to Elsie Jane ELEY 1881-1972, and had two sons as above.
From obit in the Times of 27 April 2023:
Sir Win Bischoff obituary
Influential banker who drove Schroders’ growth, steered Citigroup through the financial crisis and chaired Lloyds Banking Group
… He was a chameleon, perceived as secretive and shy by some people, but as outgoing and optimistic by others. According to his elder son, Christopher, he was a “glass half-full” type of person who was “never overly stressed or perturbed”. Yet his obsessive dedication to his work meant keeping clients happy whatever the cost. Christopher recalled: “When my brother Charlie and I were young, we had numerous holidays cancelled. Skiing in France once, Dad needed to get back to London because another firm had launched a dawn raid on a client’s shares. He drove through the night with us in the back of the car, and got to the City in time for a 9am board meeting.”…
… After more than five decades in banking and finance, a 2019 interview with Patrick Jenkins in the Financial Times noted: “He is the epitome of the City gent, still sprightly and a touch rosy-cheeked from years of wining and dining. Even without the bowler hat and rolled umbrella that were the uniform of Bischoff’s generation when he joined the merchant bank Schroders in the 1960s, he seems the embodiment of the old-school British banker.”
et appearances could deceive. Winfried Franz Wilhelm Bischoff was born in Aachen, on the German-Belgian border, in 1941, the eldest son of Paul, an import-export entrepreneur, and Hildegard Kühn, whom Paul met when she was a nanny in London. Win had two brothers and a sister.
Soon after Win’s birth, the family moved to Düsseldorf to be near Hildegard’s parents. While that meant they avoided the terrible three-week battle of Aachen in 1944, they had gone to a city which for most of the war was a key target of Allied bombardment…
… On his father’s side the family had six farms, and after the war each of the four children got one and the other two were sold. The family were mostly based on a farm outside Cologne. “It was a nice childhood,” he said, “but there wasn’t much money around. There weren’t cars. My father had a motorbike with a sidecar. The produce of the farm was taken to auction by horse and carriage. It was a relatively simple life.”…
… In 1970 Bischoff met his future wife, Rosemary Leathers, granddaughter of Viscount Leathers. At the time he was going out with a delightful French-Swiss banker’s daughter who invited him to her parents’ annual party in Geneva. Bischoff, however, was already committed to attending the christening of a friend’s son — whose godmother was Rosemary. “I met her because of good manners,” Bischoff said. “You accept an invitation, you keep to it.”… Together they built a home from scratch in the hills above Sienna in Tuscany. Rosemary predeceased him in 2018. Their first son, Christopher, went into venture capital. Their younger son, Charles, became a City lawyer. Both survive their father…
Sir Winfried Bischoff, banker, was born on May 10, 1941. He died after a short illness on April 25, 2023, aged 81
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sir-win-bischoff-obituary-g0wjphd3w