Baron Bruno Schroder maintains an active interest in the financial house that bears his name – he maintains an office in the company’s Gresham Street offices, having been reelected as a non-executive director two months ago.

When not in London, Baron Bruno – a title bestowed on the family by the King of Prussia – lives on his estate, the Isle of Islay, where he flies aircraft and breeds Middle White pigs.

With his sister Charmaine, he donated £675,000 to help to fund a £1.4 million lifeboat for the island, contributed in memory of his late father.

Although the Schroder family fortune is estimated at £1.6 billion, he is described as an unlikely billionaire – he shuns pinstripes and eshews chauffeurs. Aged 74, Baron Bruno was educated at Eton and Oxford and started work at Schroder Gebruder bank in Hamburg in 1954.

In 1960, he joined the Schroder Group in London, where he worked in the commercial banking and corporate finance divisions of J. Henry Schroder Wagg & Co. In 1963, he was made a Schroders’ director.

Schroders’ history starts in 1804 when Johann Heinrich Schröder became a partner in his brother’s London-based firm. In 1959, Schroders listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Seven years ago, the company sold its investment banking business to Salomon Smith Barney, leaving the private banking and fund management arms, which netted the Schroders family about £320 million.

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