Charterhouse Bank


Charterhouse Bank was a British investment bank.

History

Charterhouse Bank was incorporated as an investment bank in December 1920. In 1963 Charterhouse Bank merged with S. Japhet and Company, a rival investment bank established by Saemy Japhet, to form Charterhouse Japhet.
A US-based arm, Charterhouse Group, was formed in 1973, but became independent of its parent in the 1980s. In 1981 Charterhouse Japhet acquired Keyser Ullman, a substantial but failing rival. In November 1983, Jacob Rothschild merged his own investment business, RIT & Northern, into Charterhouse Japhet and took a controlling stake in the combined business which was briefly known as Charterhouse J. Rothschild. Rothschild then sold the banking business, still known as Charterhouse Japhet, to Royal Bank of Scotland in January 1985. From 1985 to 1996 Sir Victor Blank held the posts of Chairman and Chief Executive of the banking business, which reverted to its original name, Charterhouse Bank.
Royal Bank of Scotland sold 90% of Charterhouse Bank to two continental banks, Crédit Commercial de France and Berliner Handels- und Frankfurter Bank in February 1993. Crédit Commercial de France acquired Berliner Handels- und Frankfurter Bank in the late 1990s, so consolidating its investment in Charterhouse Bank, but was itself taken over by HSBC in 2000.
In June 2001, the management of Charterhouse Capital Partners, the private equity unit of Charterhouse Bank, completed a management buyout from HSBC to become an independent private equity business. Similarly, in May 2011, the management of HSBC Specialist Investments completed a management buyout from HSBC to become an independent infrastructure investment business.