Peter Meinertzhagen - Telegraph Meinertzhagen continued to play a part in major deals, such as the merger which formed the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, but ill health encouraged him towards a less hands-on role in the early 2000s - until he was obliged to take command again when Citigroup poached his successor and a team of senior brokers in 2005. He finally retired from Hoare Govett in 2007, some months after ABN Amro had been taken over by Royal Bank of Scotland. Following RBS's subsequent collapse and nationalisation, the broking business was sold once more - to a US investment bank, Jefferies, earlier this year. Peter Richard Meinertzhagen was born in London on April 16 1946 into an Anglo-German dynasty which had been prominent in the City since a Daniel Meinertzhagen from Bremen married the daughter of another émigré, Frederick Huth, and became a partner in his London banking house in 1833. Though Huth & Co lost much of its trade-finance business during the First World War and closed in 1936, the Meinertzhagens became part of the City establishment - and lived in appropriately grand style at Mottisfont Abbey in Hampshire. Peter's father, also Daniel, was one of four so-called "Colonels" (managing partners) who ran the merchant banking house of Lazards - in a style so relaxed that he habitually snoozed at his desk after lunch with a copy of The Times over his face, and argued against competitive "touting for business." Peter's uncle Luke Meinertzhagen was senior partner of Cazenove, while another uncle, Sir Peter, ran the Commonwealth Development Corporation. Young Peter was educated at Eton and spent an enjoyable year at the Sorbonne in Paris before entering the City in 1965. He joined Hoare & Co, then still the fiefdom of "Kit" Hoare, "a splendid pirate [who] would have boarded any ship," according to a contemporary, and who contrived to be on the inside of all the lucrative deals of his day while doing business on a handshake and never writing anything down. A more conventional regime followed merger with the rival firm of Govett in 1970. Meinertzhagen was also a director of the London Stock Exchange, and after leaving Hoare Govett he kept a hand in the market as a director of two smaller broking firms. He was a low-handicap golfer, and an enthusiast for the Turf. He married, in 1967, Nikki Phillips, whom he first met in a Paris cinema queue. She survives him with four daughters; a fifth daughter predeceased him. Peter Meinertzhagen, born April 16 1946, died November 28 2012