“Good honest trading.” That is the key to restoring – and maintaining – public faith in banks and financial institutions, reckons Keith Loudon, Senior Partner at Redmayne-Bentley and one of the UK’s longest-serving stockbrokers.

As he approaches his 82nd birthday, the charismatic Yorkshireman has no plans to retire, preferring instead to turn up for work at his office in the centre of Leeds.

In a fortnight dominated by revelations about HSBC’s offshore activities, and at a time when bankers are still mistrusted by the general public, Loudon advocates a return to “high ethical standards”.

“How do we restore trust? Directors of banks need a good knowledge of the business,” he says. “Look at the Co-Operative Bank. Its directors had a wide range of skills, but they weren’t specialists in finance or banking.”
"Greater regulation is good if it reduces fraud and excess, but the rules can disadvantage an honest broker expressing a view" It is perhaps not surprising that Loudon, who joined Redmayne-Bentley in the 1950s, puts so much emphasis on relationships, high ethical standards and communication. He began his career at a time when the bond between broker and client was a personal one, which rested on trust and genuinely honest advice.

“Ethical standards are very important. You need to have principles and stick by them,” he says. “Clients knew we weren’t ‘Flash Harrys’ out to make a quick buck – we wanted to still be working with them in 20 or 30 years’ time.”

A head for figures Loudon qualified as a chartered accountant after leaving Woodhouse Grove School in Leeds, although he had considered becoming a solicitor or a lawyer. “In those days, you needed to have Latin in order to go in for the law, and I hadn’t studied it at school and there was not much chance of me teaching myself Latin in my lunch hour,” he says. 

The CV
2015: Awarded an OBE

2013: Awarded Yorkshire Ambassador at the Yorkshire Business Masters 2013 Awards; awarded an honorary doctorate in Business Administration from Leeds Metropolitan University (now Leeds Beckett University)

2012: Presented with a Lifetime Achievement award at the City of London Wealth Management Awards for services to the stockbroking industry
 
1996: Joined the Trustees of National Heart Research (now Heart Research UK). Today he is President of the charity

1993-94: Appointed Lord Mayor of Leeds

1965: Became a partner at Redmayne & Co

1956: Joined Redmayne & Co after qualifying as a chartered accountant

1951: Called up for National Service, aged 18

1950: Left school to train as an accountant. Joined accountancy firm John Gordon Walton

1933: Born in Horsforth, Leeds
So he opted for accountancy instead. “I had to pay £200 to be articled as a clerk in a chartered accountancy firm and I earned 15 shillings (75p) a week, which was not enough to pay for my lunch and my bus fare,” he recalls.

After “stamping passbooks for three months and adding up pounds, shillings and pence on a counting machine”, he decided accountancy was not for him, despite having qualified as a chartered accountant. So instead he joined his father, Gavin Loudon, at Redmayne & Co, which merged with FW Bentley & Co and JW Granger & Co to become Redmayne-Bentley in 1965. 

“When I started, there were four people in the office of Redmayne & Co and everything was handwritten," he says. The desks were high-sloping Victorian desks with a buffet seat, although after a while my father changed that.

“I loved it. I took to it like a duck to water. When I was supposed to be studying for accountancy, I always enjoyed reading the Investors Chronicle and other investment news before I could bring myself to start work.”

His life’s workLoudon remains a prominent figure at a firm that has grown into one of the UK’s largest independently owned stockbrokers, with more than 300 staff across almost 40 branches.

“I enjoy coming to work – I need it,” he says. “My father worked until he was 84, and his business partner came to work until his mid-80s.”

Nowadays, Loudon’s role is about communication, networking and maintaining contacts with the firm’s 38 branches across the UK – as far afield as the north of Scotland and Exeter.

“You do different things as you get older,” he reflects. “I’ve had a hearing aid for 20 years and I’m pretty deaf now. I don’t work on client accounts. The biggest asset we have is our people – they are our ambassadors and it is important to keep communicating with them, and keeping the high standards that we have. You have got to be flexible and be prepared to change, and I have great pride in the company.”

Public serviceLoudon's outside interests and commitments have kept him busy, too. For 40 years he served as a councillor at Leeds City Council, which taught him some valuable lessons. “I learned how to handle myself in a committee, and how important it is to respect the chair,” he explains. “I also learned that career civil servants have their own agenda, and you have to be alert to that.”

Between 1993 and 1994 he served as Lord Mayor of Leeds, attending 1,300 engagements in a year. “I always stuck to my commitments – if I had said I was going to attend a Brownie tea party I would do so, even if that meant turning down other offers,” he says.

Despite being well past state retirement age, he shows no sign of slowing down. In 2013 he celebrated his 80th birthday by opening the London Stock Exchange for the second time in eight years (pictured right).

“Whatever you achieve in life depends on the people around you,” he says. “Very few of us can achieve something completely by ourselves – it’s about the people who have helped and supported you.”

Given his longevity in the workplace, where does he stand on the issue of pension age? 

“When I was young, people retired at 60 to 65 and were dead within a few years,” he notes. “There are predictions that by 2050 a far greater proportion of people will be living until they are 100. There is a case for gradually increasing the retirement age.”

Early memberThroughout his career, Loudon has been able to rely on support from the CISI. He was one of the earliest members of the Institute, which he believes is a “vital institution” that plays a key role in the industry.

He emphasises: “It is important to have a body that deals with qualifications and that gives voice to the opinions and aspirations of members of the industry. Greater regulation is good if it reduces fraud and excess, but the rules can disadvantage an honest broker expressing a view.

“There have got to be standards, but academic standards are not necessarily a measure of a person’s ability to give good advice.”

Loudon is certainly well placed to impart wisdom to his son, David, who is continuing the family tradition, working at Redmayne-Bentley as Managing Partner. Speaking of the firm – which is celebrating its 140th anniversary this year – Loudon senior says: “We are here today and here to stay.” That could just as easily describe Loudon himself.