Stones banker hoists For Sale sign

WHEN private banking group Leopold Joseph put itself up for sale on Tuesday at its annual general meeting, the move signalled another small but significant milestone in the decline of the old City of London.

Leopold Joseph, banker to the Rolling Stones, is virtually the last quoted survivor from the ranks of the independent private banks that once dominated the City.

Like many of the better-known rivals in the Square Mile it was founded by a German immigrant, in this case a City reporter for the newspaper Frankfurter Zeitung.

However, in contrast to the Warburgs and the Kleinworts, the bank held on to its independence through the upheavals of the 1980s and Nineties, when the American and European financial giants swallowed the cream of Britain's merchant and private banking industries.

The Gresham Street-based bank, founded in 1919, told shareholders it was considering several options, including a possible offer. Rival Coutts, now part of the Royal Bank of Scotland group, is thought to be interested.

The move is believed to have been forced by the decision of chairman Robin Herbert to seek a buyer for his 20% stake in Leo-Jo, as the bank is sometimes known.

Old Etonian Herbert, 70 next year, is the bank's last remaining link with its glamorous heyday when it was for a while the bank of choice of many of the stars who made the Sixties swing.

In 1963 control of the bank passed from the three sons of the founder to a consortium that included Herbert, his friend Anthony Berry, who became a Tory MP and was killed in the 1984 Brighton bombing, and Bavarian nobleman Prince Rupert Loewenstein.

Loewenstein, whose showbiz connections earned him the nickname 'Rupie the Groupie' met the Stones in the late 1960s when their finances were in chaos - it is said he had never heard of them until that day. He cut them loose from a crippling contract and launched them on the road to immense wealth. He remains their financial adviser. Other showbiz clients followed, including Cat Stevens before his conversion to Islam.

Loewenstein retired from the board in 1981. But it still boasts a smattering of high profile names among its 6,000 clients, who must have at least £500,000 to invest.

With the now-inevitable takeover, one more fragment of the old City will be absorbed into the megagroups that rule the London roost.