Histories

As one of Britain’s first independent financial advisers, Julian Gibbs, a scion of an established banking family, was a long-time investment columnist and a founding member of Money Marketing. He was also a former whisky and lavatory brush salesman in Africa, a bon viveur whose lavish parties were lit up by bright young men, and a man so impetuously generous that he once bought one of David Frost’s companies to help a friend who depended on its income. He made a lot of money in the City but was insouciant of details and careless of his own financial advice. Twice declared bankrupt, he bounced back each time.

Gibbs came from a family long at the centre of British finance, politics and diplomacy. One uncle was chairman of NatWest bank. Another, Sir Humphrey Gibbs, was the last governor-general of Rhodesia before the unilateral declaration of independence. A brother was a noted antiques dealer, chairman of the J Paul Getty charitable trust and a fashionable dandy who was the first man, reputedly, to wear flared trousers. His father, Sir Geoffrey Gibbs, was a philanthropist and the first chairman of the Nuffield Foundation, while his mother, Helen Leslie, was chief commissioner for the overseas Girl Guides.

The first in his family to make a financial splash was his great-great-great-great grandfather, who made a fortune from digging up and selling guano, prompting the ditty of the time: “Mister Gibbs made his dibs from the turds of foreign birds.” Alas, the money did not last, and by 1815 he had lost it all. His great-grandfather did better, becoming governor of the Bank of England in 1875.

Julian Herbert Gibbs was born in 1932 in Essendon, Hertfordshire, and raised in comfort at Maidwell Hall in Northamptonshire. He was sent to Eton and was then called up for National Service, where he was commissioned as an officer in the Green Jackets and spent a year in Germany.

He began his career in the City of London, where he worked as an underwriter for the family firm Antony Gibbs, but, he reminisced later, “as the third son of the second son of the fourth son, I was quite a small cog”. He found the formal City rules somewhat restricting. Young underwriters had to be at work half an hour before the directors and could only leave half an hour after the last director had left. No expense account lunches were permitted for juniors, which irked him, so he found himself a night job as a columnist for the London Magazine, covering racing, restaurants and theatre reviews, enabling him to dine out for free three times a week.

Gibbs decided to seek his fortune, along with fun and independence, in Africa and moved to Johannesburg, where he became a life and general insurance salesman. He transferred to Bulawayo, in Southern Rhodesia, where he developed sidelines in whisky, wine and lavatory brushes, which he sold to hotels and to the British consulate, allowing him to register “lavatory brush salesman” on his CV.

In 1959 he returned to England and joined the life and pension section of the family firm. He recalled selling young people “whole-of-life without-profits contracts to look after your mother”, which paid 1 per cent annually and after three years could be converted to with-profits at 2.5 per cent renewal, something he later described as “terrifying” by subsequent standards.

The stock market crash of 1974 put pressure on the firm, with a stream of customers demanding to know how to turn around their losses. One morning a former head of the Conservative Party turned up without an appointment for urgent talks. Despite Gibbs’s confidence that the storm would pass, the family firm was shaken by the events and pulled out. In 1974 Gibbs, who advised his clients to sit tight, set up on his own as Julian Gibbs Associates, which became one of the biggest investment advisers in the country. He sold it profitably to Reed Stenhouse in 1980 while continuing to use his expertise to advise on marketing and product development. In 1985 he became a founding columnist for Money Marketing.

His opinions were forthright and shrewd. In a tribute to him on his 70th birthday, Money Marketing noted that he was an early admirer of Margaret Thatcher, but had little time for John Major, who, Gibbs thought, had let things get out of control. He had praise for Tony Blair for governing in difficult times, but was less impressed by the Financial Services Authority.

For Gibbs however, making money was only a means to leading the life as close to Riley as possible. In the 1970s he owned a fine house in Lymington on the south coast with its own beach, as well as a house in London, before moving to Notting Hill Gate in his final years. He gave regular sherry parties and went often to the opera and to art galleries, and knew a lot about both. On a journey through France he stopped at almost every Michelin-starred restaurant. In the late 1990s he found a permanent partner, Joel O’Connor, and both made much of their zest for life. They were married in 2014. Joel survives him.

“He was genuinely classless and would befriend anyone who was alone at a party,” a friend said. His generosity sometimes got the better of him, as he was unconcerned about the details of his spending and others took advantage. Twice he went bankrupt, first at the time of the stock market crash in the mid-Seventies and then in the Nineties after he lent a large sum that was not repaid. Still, he went bankrupt in style, draining a large wine cellar before it had to be sold off.

Julian Gibbs, financial adviser, was born on November 20, 1932. He died on April 25, 2021, aged 88