Charles Cayzer ?

I have done this site especially for Charles Cayzer
in order to visit crazybillionaire.org

Charles Cayzer - businessweek.com

Charles Cayzer serves as Chairman of The Sloane Club, Easybox and Edinmore. Mr. Cayzer gained experience of merchant banking, commercial banking and corporate and project finance with Baring Brothers, Cayzer Irvine & Co and Cayzer Limited. He has been Executive Director of Caledonia Investments PLC since 1985. He has been Non Executive Director of Eredene Capital PLC since September 12, 2006. He has been Director of Varun Shipping Co. Ltd. since August 14, 2007. .

ORPORATE HEADQUARTERS*
Cayzer House
London, Greater London SW1E 6NN
United Kingdom
Phone: 44 20 7802 8080
Fax: 44 20 7802 8090

BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEMBERSHIPS*

2007-Present
Independent Non Executive Director
Varun Shipping Co. Ltd.
2006-Present
Non Executive Director
Eredene Capital PLC
1985-Present
Executive Director
Caledonia Investments plc

------------------

UK: Conquests of the cautious Cayzers - success of Charles Cayzer family AND CALEDONIAN INVESTMENTS.

managementtoday.co.uk

UK: Conquests of the cautious Cayzers - success of Cayzer family AND CALEDONIAN INVESTMENTS. - For 30 years British and Commonwealth Holdings - one-time owner of the world's biggest cargo ship fleet - lived at St Mary's Axe in the City, with a roster of

For 30 years British and Commonwealth Holdings - one-time owner of the world's biggest cargo ship fleet - lived at St Mary's Axe in the City, with a roster of crusty seamen greeting visitors at the front desk. One Thursday in mid-1987 they were all sacked. Next day, the old salts had been replaced by leggy women in fitted suits with million-dollar smiles. B and C's new chief executive, John Gunn, was making his mark on the old Cayzer family empire.

Upstairs on the first floor, Lord Cayzer, chairman of B and C and distinguished head of the Cornish-bred family now thought to be worth £400 million, sat down to his lunch in the executive dining room. The menu had changed. Instead of the old "school food" that he loved - the steak and kidney pie and spotted dick - there was nouvelle cuisine: weightless bits of bird and pineapple, and peas still in their pods. His clever find, this man John Gunn, clearly had as much nerve as style.

These were small incidences - considering what was to follow: Gunn's build up of B and C into the biggest finance house in London, and then its resounding crash in June 1990, when its failed subsidiary, Atlantic Computers, exposed the group's Achilles' heel. Even more extraordinary was the heroic escape of the Cayzer family.

In this same summer of 1987, Lord Cayzer, who had laboured for 40 years to build up the B and C empire, decided he had had enough of his chief executive's flamoyant style. With ruthless conviction, he sold out of B and C for £427 million. His timing was exquisite. Weeks later, the October '87 stockmarket crash shattered London, and B and C's share price plunged. From then on, in City eyes, these were the "canny Cayzers": they had timing, they had style, and most of all, they had serious money.

The story of the rise and rise of the Cayzer family is a story of the triumph of caution over speed. In the '80s, John Gunn was the personification of his time: fast-talking, fast moving and ready to deal with anyone if it would grab the headlines. The opposite culture, which has taken the upper hand in these cheerless times, is typical Cayzer. Lord William Nicholas Cayzer, second baronet of Roffey Park, Eton and Cambridge educated, is the epitome of white-gloved power. He is a tall, strong-willed character who "anyone could pick out as chairman in a boardroom line up" as veteran Caledonia director Geoffrey Adkin puts it. A former manager recalls, "Reporting to him was a terrifying experience."

As chairman of the publicly-listed 46% controlled Caledonia Investments, which is now the family's main vehicle, Lord Cayzer conducts his business on a basis of trust, with old and loyal contacts, and a tight fist on every pound. Lord Cayzer's nephew and now Caledonia chief executive, Peter Buckley, comes from a similar mould, but his accounting background, if anything, makes him even more fastidious and sceptical.

On the edge of St Katherine's Dock, in a yellow brick building laced with grand model ships, Peter Buckley sits in perfect calm and, with the caution of one alient to publicity, and yet almost a secret enjoyment of its novelty, he tells the Cayzer tale. He is patient; he is polite. Only the spectacles twirling in one hand, and a cheerful account of a jeep trip round the Mediterranean in his teens, betray his covert enjoyment of the thrill of "doing a deal". If, at 49, he is impatient to have the bit in his teeth, he does not show it. On the contrary, he refers to himself as the one who "just happens to be in charge of the team". For three generations each Cayzer chairman has retained his seat to the end. No doubt, Lord Cayzer will do the same.

Since its sweeping exit from B and C in 1987, Caledonia Investments has been having a grand time spending its £427 million. Naturally there has been no shortage of people eager to help the family out with its weightly problem. Advisors, laden to the teeth with bright ideas, have queued at the Cayzer's door. But to get from the door into Caledonia's pockets is another matter.

Murky-browned and pencil at the ready, Buckley pares each comer to the core to see if the facts behind the grand ideas match up to his punishing criteria. Those who know the secretive family describe the style of the board as "consensual, almost Japanese". Gentlemanly attitudes prevail - a hostile takeover is unthinkable - but narrow-minded they are not. One observer recalls a scruffy media personality mincing in, tieless and briefcaseless, to present an investment opportunity to the Cayzers, his papers bulging from a plastic bag. His story was so good, the Cayzers did a deal. Another set of castaways - the young managers of Edinburgh Crystal Glass - who found themselves out in the street after their parent company Coloroll collapsed, also passed the muster. Managing director, Bill Soutar, contrasts the "action-packed" style of Coloroll's John Ashcroft with the "very comforting hand" from Caledonia. "But it's not a soft touch - just sufficient to keep us working from 7 am to 10 at night," he laughs.

Gravelly voiced and sporting a pocket handkerchief that looks unthinkably like a paper tissue, Buckley explains how Caledonia has returned to its old philosophy of spreading its risk. To its traditional holdings in chemical firm Amber Industrial (75%) and engineering group Sterling Industries (21%), it has added spicier touches: financial services, brewing, the media. At first look, the company would seem to be an investor's dream. IT has no net borrowings, it is sitting on some clever investments, and, most of all, it has cash - from April, some £200 million of it.

Yet curiously, over the past few years, Caledonia has underperformed the sharemarket. This is due partly to the long-term attitude of the Cayzers: few investors today have blood so blue as to think beyond the next few years. But more importantly, as interest rates have fallen, so have the returns on the lucrative pile of cash, while its minority equity holdings have yielded only dividends.

Buckley admits that the shares' poor performance is "not totally satisfactory, but not out of line with similar investment companies." The recent £78.5 million backing of a management buyout (MBO) at old-time friend Bristow Helicopters could indicate that Buckley is aiming to push earnings up. Without Bristow, Caledonia's profits would have been significantly down this year. As it is, BZW analyst Karen Bennett predicts a restrained dip to £33 million pre-tax on last year's £35.3 million.

Other professional Caledonia watchers have dared to suggest that perhaps the Cayzers are now simply too cautious, and their holdings too small and diverse. "It's run like a club," says one critic. "You go in and all the men look the same, sound the same, and wear the same suits and ties. Caledonia might benefit from having one or two people with brown shoes and short-sleeved shirts, rather than French cuffs - someone more abrasive. With the consensus approach it just needs one nervous voice to kill an idea." Buckley no doubt will disagree, but the funny thing is, it was a character who probably wore brown shoes who made the family its first fortune.

For the Cayzer story started more than a century ago, with a schoolmaster's son called Charles William Cayzer - a precocious lad who could well afford to take risks. A youth spent by the Thames gave the young Cayzer a passion for sailing which took him to Bombay and then to Liverpool, where he sat up selling ship stores. In 1878, at age 35 and in partnership with Captain Alexander Irving, Charles Cayzer founded Cayzer, Irvine and Co.

Backed by borrowings, the young businessman soon wrangled deals that had his Clan Line Association Steamers serving India and South Africa. When he died in 1916, having won a seat in parliament and a knighthood, his sons took over the firm, shifting its head office to London. Two of his offspring succeeded him in the chair: Sir August Cayzer, and the first Lord Rotherwick.

It was in the mid-'50s, when Lord Rotherwick fell ill, that the present Lord Cayzer, at age 45, rose to prominence. A fierce battle was under way, with the Clan Line bidding for control of the prestigious Union-Castle "Golden Line". In October 1955 Union-Castle succumbed, and the Cayzers leaped to the peak of their industry, renaming the 100-plus ship merged firm British and Commonwealth Shipping. Caledonia Investments, set up in 1951 and floated in 1960, was used as the holding vehicle for the family's 49% B and C stake.

Those were days of crackling change, when the gentleman owners of shipping lines had to witness the fall of their fleets before the new innovations of containerisation and air travel. Alert to the changes, Lord Cayzer diversified through the '60s and '70s. His tactics led to holdings in British United Airways and Bristow Helicopters: the latter thrived in the oil industry boom, while BUA was sold on, the Cayzers keeping a smaller island-hopper which has since become Air UK.

In 1969, Lord Cayzer got his first serious sniff of the lucrative world of finance. As the family was already involved in investment, he decided to set up a new firm, Gartmore Investment Management, naming it after a family home in Scotland. It was the subsequent success of this financial animal that made Lord Cayzer look again when, a few years later, a similar door opened. Today he probably wishes he had slammed it shut.

Bill Campbell Allan, the head of Gartmore, in the course of business one day met the effervescent John Gunn, head of money broker Exco. Inspired by this large man's enthusiasm and talent, he introduced him to Lord Cayzer. "Lord Cayzer became fascinated by John Gunn, who talked faster than anybody else," recalls Gartmore's current chairman Paul Myners.

When Lord Cayzer first agreed to back John Gunn in 1979, contributing to a £5.2 million buyout of Exco for a 30% stake, he probably thought the association would end there. But Gunn made money for the Cayzers like no one else. Exco surged in value, floating on the market at £56 million in 1981 and by 1985 was worth £500 million, an extraordinary 100-fold increase in just six years. Gunn also talked the Cayzers into investing in a 24% stake in Telerate, a financial information service, in 1981. Four years later the stake was sold for a £50-million profit. Whether it was luck or acumen, the Cayzers got the timing right. Soon after the share price plunged.

What followed remains a curiosity to this day. B and C and Exco had quickly grown closer through a series of deals. Then, in 1985, a furore at Exco and a walkout by Gunn, made the headlines. Here was the boy wonder of the '80s - John Gunn, the "aquaped" who could walk on water - out in the street, up for grabs. Offers flowed in, but to the surprise of all, Gunn instead chose the direly conservative B and C group as his new home. The lure was clear; B and C was stuffed full of goodies, properties that had not been revalued for 30 years and scores of modestly accounted for businesses.

For the first year, as a director "without portfolio", Gunn obviously impressed Lord Cayzer. In 1986, he was made chief executive of B and C and the group's share price soared. It was a sad and resounding blow to Peter Buckley - it was he who had always been seen as the successor to his uncle Lord Cayzer.

From the outside, it seemed Gunn was performing magic on this old-fashioned company. Exco, which had been torn asunder from B and C after Gunn's defection, was purchased back for £655 million. Abaco, a company in which Gunn and two of his old colleagues, Peter Goldie and Rusty Ashman (both of whom joined B and C), all had substantial shareholdings, was also bought by B and C, yielding each of them a hearty personal profit. To top it off, two small B and C banks were blown up into the new largescale B and C Merchant Bankn. Gunn swept in a score of old pals from Guinness Mahon. Reports one manager who promptly left: "I took one look at these people and thought I'd be better off without them."

From inside B and C the picture was different. On the first floor of the red brick Cayzer House, Lord Cayzer occupied one suite of offices, while at the other end of the corridor, John Gunn and his abrasive chief executive Peter Goldie had another. Peter Buckley sweeps aside the memory of those days with the comment that there was "a considerable reduction in communications". Others report that, at best, Gunn was reporting his actions to board meetings - sometimes after the fact: he saw no need to consult a family who did not understand his ways. The salaries being doled out must have turned Lord Cayzer white. In 1987 John Gunn, Peter Goldie and Julian Lee were being paid £500,000 plus share options, compared with Cayzer family top salaries of £150,000.

It took two years for the Cayzers to decide enough was enough. Gunn was clearly intent on making B and C a pure finance house, built on a pile of debt. In June 1987, Caledonia Investments sold out of B and C for £100 million cash and £327.5 million in redeemable preference shares. Peter Buckley, who from then took over as guardian of the Cayzer fortune, cleverly secured a bank guarantee, because "if you're getting money on deferred terms it's just good common-sense". It was the Cayzer's coup d'etat. Three years later B and C collapsed leaving scores of distraught creditors.

The publicity that arose from the B and C fiasco was enough to send the notoriously shy Cayzer family back underground. Hardly a whisper has been heard since, though in its tidy, discreet way Caledonia has been pulling together a substantial new portfolio. And true to form Caledonia's choices look to be canny ones. Several assets, including the successful London Forfaiting and British Air Transport, were bought out of the failed B and C. A 5.7% stake in Christies, bought in 1988, was sold for near double in 1990 - just before the art market collapsed. After the 1987 crash, Caledonian picked up a chunk of English and Scottish Investors, which has since risen by 45%. Cherry-picking with a passion, the group has picked up 25% of merchant bank Close Brothers, 75% of Clan Asset Management, 5% of brewer Vaux Group, 5.5% of Capital Radio, 25% of Harry Ramsdens, and the prestigious Sloane Club in Chelsea.

Mercifully for the rest of us, a certain human fallibility has also been exposed. Some of the pickings, like Anglo American Agriculture and property surveyors de Morgan, have not done so well. But historically the Cayzer strike rate is high. Buckley attributes this to choosiness: the price, the people, and the follow-up stewardship of the firm must be right. "There's no substitute for the daily routine and being attentive to detail," he sums up.

The ultimate dream of Caledonia's indefatigable chief executive is, as he blandly puts it, to build a "spread of soundly-based and promising holdings." At this point of the Cayzer's family's tumultuous history, it is still too early to judge what will follow: are they at the foot of a new mountain of fortune, or slipping down the slope of the last? Caution has its rewards. Too true. However it can also have a price. But then who are we to say - one thing Peter Buckley plainly knows is that the Cayzers never got anywhere by listening to anyone else. It took three generations for Charles Cayzer's dream to become 100 seabourne ships. Buckley is a man of patience.

--------------------

The Hon. Charles Cayzer - eredene.com

Non-Executive Director/Audit/Remuneration
Charles William Cayzer is an Executive Director of Caledonia Investments plc, one of the largest Investment Trusts listed on the London Stock Exchange. Having gained experience of merchant banking, commercial banking and corporate and project finance with Baring Brothers, Cayzer Irvine & Co and Cayzer Ltd, Charles was appointed a director of Caledonia in 1985, where he has responsibility for Caledonia's real estate investments. He is also a director of The Varun Shipping Company Limited in India and several private companies. Charles Cayzer sits on the audit and the remuneration committee.

----------------------

Cayzer clan at war over Caledonia - Charles Cayzer

The AGM will be the setting for a clash of the chieftains over £630m investment fund

* Nick Kochan
* The Observer, Sunday 23 June 2002

The Cayzer clan is once again at war. The owners of massive country homes in Scotland's Highland glens are sharpening their dirks for an offensive to decide which branch of this divided family will shape the ownership of a publicly quoted company called Caledonia Investments. The fratricidal battle will take place at Caledonia's annual general meeting in three weeks' time, when its management will be grilled about Caledonia's accounting practices, corporate governance and management style.

Who are the chieftains now drawing battle lines? In one glen is Sir James Cayzer, a direct descendant of Sir Charles William Cayzer, first baronet of Gartmore and the leader of a dissident family group. Sir James hails from Kinpurnie Castle, but has a permanent suite at Claridge's. His fellow warriors include his nephew Nigel Cayzer, who was unceremoniously thrown off Caledonia's board last November, Ian Molson, the wealthy heir of the Canadian brewing empire, who married a Cayzer, and Lord Robin Rotherwick.

In the other glen is Peter Buckley, whose mother is a Cayzer and who holds the executive reins of both Caledonia and of the private family company, Cayzer Trust which owns 49.6 per cent of Caledonia. Beside him are other family members with less grandiose names (but still Cayzers) like James Loudon, Michael Wyatt and Sir David Kinloch.

Caledonia is a holding company, worth some £630 million, with a ragbag range of investments including financial services companies such as Close Brothers, Friends Ivory & Sime and Rathbone, helicopter company Bristow and the South African leisure group Sun International Hotels.

The AGM will be told that Caledonia's lesser-known investments have a patchy record. It will learn for the first time that Caledonia invested £9.8m in a subsidiary called the Union-Castle Mail Steamship Company so that it could charter a luxury liner called the MS Victoria to take a three-month voyage from Southampton to Cape Town and back to celebrate the millennium. Buckley and his family colleagues, the Hon Charles Cayzer and Sir David Kinloch, were understood to be attracted to the plan because the Cayzers have residual family links with shipping.

The offer was as successful as most millennial celebrations. Less than two-thirds of the ship's 700 bunks were filled and the company lost at least £4.7m. Union-Castle's accounts admit that while the company is entitled to £2m-worth of dividends, 'it appears unlikely that any amount will be paid'. The accounts go on to say that 'the total loss from the voyage has been met from funding and the directors are therefore satisfied with the result, which they regard as a significant investment in brand awareness... The planned year-round chartering to locations such as the Falkland Islands [to mark important events] has not progressed any further'.

Institutional shareholders, including Hermes, which speaks for 10 per cent of Caledonia, are likely to use the AGM to question the transparency of the cruise's treatment in the accounts. They will say that Caledonia's accounts are so crafted that a reader could never have known that the company had either invested in such an unpromising operation nor that it lost so much money. The problems are glossed over by a change in accounting terminology. The Union-Castle line is described in Caledonia's 2000 accounts as a 'cruise operator' but in the 2001 accounts as 'non-trading' even though Union-Castle was operational during both periods.

While the accounts will undoubtedly give shareholders cause for concern, issues related to governance will also come under fire. Most controversial is the massive scope for conflict of inter ests between the privately owned Cayzer Trust and the publicly quoted Caledonia. Institutional investors argue that Caledonia is being run for the benefit of the private company, although a majority of its stock is publicly quoted.

Shareholders were particularly angered at a letter sent by Caledonia and the Cayzer Trust chairman Peter Buckley to trust shareholders saying that the 'purpose of Cayzer Trust was to control Caledonia'.

Those keeping hold on the Cayzer tiller resist change, said one dissident family member. 'They have all a very nice, cosy set-up, it's like a gentlemen's club. They don't want anyone rocking the boat and changing things. It's a very nice lifestyle. But they haven't delivered great returns to shareholders.'

Another dissident said: 'The public company is being run according to the wishes and ambitions of the minority shareholder. This is neither consistent with proper governance nor with maximising shareholding value. The structure of Caledonia is incredibly prejudicial to its shareholders.'

The absence of a takeover premium, together with an unfavourable tax structure, has produced a discount to net asset value of 25 per cent. One substantial investor estimated the loss to shareholders arising from the discount at £200m. His view was that if this cannot be returned to the shareholders it should be liquidated.

A share buyback operation costing Caledonia about £50m has reduced the discount by some 16 per cent, but that has also brought the Cayzer Trust holding close to the 50 per cent point where it would be required to make an offer. Further buy-backs are now ruled out.

Caledonia was first riven by public dissent in early 2001, when its board restructure came under attack from both dissident family members and institutions. Buckley responded by stepping down from the joint position of chairman and chief executive of Caledonia and bringing in Tim Ingram, the former Abbey National director, on an annual salary of £325,000, plus 50 per cent bonus and £50,000 for his car.

The family bias on the Caledonia board was in part rectified by the appointment of two non-executives from outside the family. But conflicts of interest have remained a key concern as Buckley has remained chairman of Caledonia and chairman and chief executive of Cayzer Trust, and the majority of the Caledonia board remains connected to Cayzer Trust and Buckley.

One shareholder said: 'Peter Buckley is becoming the problem. Why doesn't the structure modify? It is not that the Cayzer family doesn't want it to change. It is because it is being led by someone who says he doesn't want to change it.'

Institutions were given little encouragement by the recent appointment of yet two more Cayzer relations, Jamie Cayzer-Colvin and Will Wyatt, as Caledonia associate directors. Both men gained early management experience in the Army, prior to joining companies related to Caledonia. They are also substantial shareholders in Caledonia, and one dissident said: 'One has to ask whether this is a case of jobs for the boys to keep family harmony or maintaining overall value for the group.'

Institutional shareholders place considerable store by Ingram's appointment, while privately expressing some concern about whether he has been given the authority to push through some of the tougher changes required of the company. One family member asked whether Ingram was 'going to maintain the status quo or will he institute change for the good of shareholders?'

The most heavily canvassed change demanded by the institutions is Caledonia's conversion from a holding company, which pays capital-gains tax on investment sales, to investment-trust status, where asset sales are tax-free. This strategy has been devised by Sir John Craven,whose Gleacher banking boutique has been retained by the dissident group.

The requirement to pay capital gains tax, says one dissident shareholder, is responsible for the company's failure to sell investments confidently or quickly enough to realise gains. The sale of Caledonia's stake in Close Brothers, for example, has long been mooted, but the company missed the peak of the market, and must now watch as it steadily declines.

That may also be the fate for Caledonia, unless the Cayzers solve their family problems quickly.

---------------------

Cayzer family braced for Caledonia showdown - Charles Cayzer

Members of the City dynasty are set to gather next week for a crisis meeting over the possible winding up of its £250m trust

By Nigel Cope, City Editor
The Independent Close

The members of one of Britain's wealthiest business dynasties will meet in an anonymous-looking building near the Tower of London next week in an attempt to resolve a dispute that threatens to blow the family apart.

The members of one of Britain's wealthiest business dynasties will meet in an anonymous-looking building near the Tower of London next week in an attempt to resolve a dispute that threatens to blow the family apart.

The family members ­ up to 120 of them ­ represent the secretive Cayzer dynasty, which controls a major stake in Caledonia Investments. Caledonia is hardly a household name but it owns valuable stakes in high profile City institutions such as Close Brothers, the merchant bank, and Friends Ivory & Sime, the fund manager. The business is valued at £750m on the stock market.

The extraordinary general meeting at Trinity House on 15 June will decide the future of the Cayzer Trust, which holds a 34 per cent stake in Caledonia. Ultimately it could decide the destiny of Caledonia itself, a business with a rich history dating back to the shipping industry of the late nineteenth century. It is a dispute with everything; money, power, feuding families and some of the best financial assets in the land. But at its heart is money.

The key figure in the drama is Sir James Cayzer, a bon viveur and friend of the Queen Mother. Sir James, 68, and some of his family supporters want to sell their holdings in the Cayzer Trust but have become frustrated that their shares would be worth a fraction of their underlying value.

He has rejected an offer by the trust to buy his Cayzer shares for £30m. He claims they are worth £40m because Caledonia's shares trade at a substantial discount to their net asset value, as with many investment trusts and conglomerates.

Sir James has accused Peter Buckley, Caledonia's chief executive and one of his relatives, of taking a "dismissive attitude to anyone who disagrees".

Caledonia takes the view that Sir James is not a shareholder but a trustee and that his action would damage the trust for future generations.

Sir James has tabled a resolution at next week's EGM requesting that the board allow family members at least one chance to sell shares closer to Net Asset Value. If successful, Caledonia would be bound under stock exchange rules to extend this offer to all shareholders in a move that would lead to the liquidation of the group's assets.

The board has tabled its own resolution calling for the structure and strategy of the trust to be retained. It is thought Sir James has the backing of a quarter of the trust's votes but is canvassing for more.

That Sir James is keen on raising some cash is not a surprise to those who claim to know him. He is famed for his high-spending lifestyle including regular trips with friends to his homes in Marbella and London as well as jaunts to St Petersburg. He is said to own a fleet of Rolls Royces, even though he cannot drive.

His family seat is a castle in an 8,000-acre estate near Newtyle in the east of Scotland. The estate is said to be dotted with statues which commemorate his pet dogs down the years. Sir James's supporters include Ian Molsen, deputy chairman of Molsen the Canadian brewer, Lord Rotherwick. Henrietta Cayzer and Linda Holder.

That this simmering tension of the value of their shares has bubbled to the surface is not surprising. When the trust was formed in 1948 there were less than 10 family members. Now there are 120 with differing financial needs.

The stakes are certainly high. With Caledonia Investments valued at £750m the Cayzer Trust's shares are worth £250m.

Caledonia's assets include 19 per cent of Close Brothers, 12 per cent of Rathbone Brothers and 8 per cent of Friends Ivory & Sime. Other interests include 89 per cent of Edinburgh Crystal and a stake in Bristow Helicopters. It used to have a 21 per cent stake in Sun International Hotels but sold out last year. It also made about £700m when it sold its near one per cent stake in Robert Fleming, the investment bank which was sold to Chase Manhattan for £7bn. Caledonia also controls 7 per cent of Quintain Estates, a property company involved in a bid for the Millennium Dome.

Caledonia is due to report its full year results on Tuesday with analysts forecasting profits of £50m. Net asset value at the half-year results in November was reported as 1314p per share. That compares to the current share price of 960p.

The business and the Cayzer dynasty have a wonderful history that have marked them out as truly astute investors. The story began in 1878 when Sir Charles Cayzer bought a single ship, the Clan Alpine. This formed the basis of Clan Line Steamers which became a stalwart of the British shipping industry.

To this day the Caledonia Investments head office building in London is adorned with models of its ships from the past as well as various nautical paintings.

In 1955 CLS merged with Union Castle to create British & Commonwealth. Sensing the shipping industry was in decline, the Cayzers diversified into arrange of sectors including property and hotels. They later set up the Gartmore fund management business.

But if knowing when to sell is a sign of the best investors then the Cayzers have this quality in spades. The family sold its stake in British & Commonwealth for more than £400m in 1987. The deal was completed three days before the stock market crash known as Black Wednesday. British & Commonweatlth later collapsed after the disastrous acquisition of Atlantic Computers.

Much of the credit for the stewardship of Caledonia at this time goes to Lord Cayzer who chaired the company for more than 30 years and died in 1999.

The family has had a close association with the Conservative Party, a link that was touched by tragedy in February 2000. Michael Colvin, the Tory MP for Romsey, had married a Cayzer family member, Nichola, Lord Cayzer's elder daughter. But the couple died in a blaze at their Hampshire country estate near Andover.

Lord Cayzer would no doubt turn in his grave if he were to see the family fighting among itself and squabbling with the business that has paid them generous dividends over the years. The meeting on 15 June promises to be a lively affair.

Peter Buckley - Charles Cayzer

Accountant known as a wise investor who became president of the Royal Horticultural Society

telegraph.co.uk

Peter Buckley at the RHS Wisley garden, Woking, Surrey in April 2007 Photo: SAREL JANSEN

Peter Buckley, who died on December 2 aged 66, was a chartered accountant, investment manager and latterly president of the Royal Horticultural Society.

Although essentially a private man, seven years ago Buckley found himself involved in a public feud with Sir James Cayzer, 5th Bt, over the future of the Cayzer family trust, which Buckley – whose mother was a Cayzer – ran in his role as chairman and chief executive of Caledonia Investments.

The Cayzers are one of Britain's richest families, whose interests initially spanned shipping, engineering and banking and later encompassed aviation, hotels, money broking and fund management. Their empire was founded by Charles William Cayzer, a Plymouth schoolmaster's son who had set sail aged 15 as a master's clerk in a ship bound for Japan, and settled in Bombay, where he acquired his first steamship, the Clan Alpine in 1878.

The Clan Line plied the Cape route to India and the Far East from its home port of Glasgow, and became one of the world's great shipping companies. In 1955 it merged with Union Castle to form an even more powerful group under the name of British & Commonwealth Shipping. Charles Cayzer was created a baronet, and his six sons and three daughters between them were the progenitors of more than 100 offspring.

Peter Neville Buckley, born on September 23 1942, was a Cayzer through his mother, Heather, daughter of Sir August Cayzer, Bt, who was Sir Charles's third son. Heather's second husband was an Army officer, Major Edward Richard Buckley.

After Eton and Manchester Business School, Peter served articles with McClelland Moores (later Ernst & Young), qualifying as a chartered accountant in 1966. Two years later he joined British & Commonwealth Shipping (later British & Commonwealth Holdings), of which he was executive director from 1974. The Cayzers successfully diversified away from shipping, notably into financial services. But presciently they sold their entire stake in British & Commonwealth – which was by then being run by the money broking tycoon John Gunn – just days before the 1987 crash. They held their remaining business interests and investments through Caledonia, of which Buckley became deputy chairman and chief executive after B&C was sold. He became chairman in 1994.

Under Buckley – who was once described as "Pope-like in his integrity" – Caledonia produced a consistently strong performance, increasing its dividend every year for 41 years. One of the successful investments attributed to Buckley was Caledonia's stake in Close Brothers, the merchant bank.

His cousin, Sir James Cayzer, however, became increasingly disenchanted with the way in which the family fortune was being managed, and in particular with the arrangements by which family members were allowed to sell their trust shares only to other members at a substantial discount to their real asset value. He had the support of other family members, among them the 3rd Lord Rotherwick.

"Some members of the family are not rich," Sir James said. "If they want to sell their shares they should get a fair value so that they can buy a house or provide schooling [for their children]."

In May 2001 Sir James resigned from the trust board, and at an extraordinary general meeting his camp proposed a motion of no confidence in Buckley's management. Buckley argued that what Sir James was proposing would amount to the liquidation of the trust, and the motion was soundly defeated.

As factions of the family continued to fight among themselves, in 2004 Caledonia underwent a restructuring that enabled some members to withdraw their money without breaking up the business. Buckley, in the meantime, had relinquished the role of chief executive of Caledonia in 2002 while remaining chairman.

Away from business, Buckley enjoyed golf and shooting; but his true passion was gardening, and he won a number of prizes in the RHS camellia competitions.

He also had a great enthusiasm for rhododendrons, and over the years had been developing a woodland garden at his home in Dumfriesshire, where he farmed 2,000 acres. One visitor was charmed by the extensive gardens, describing them as "harmonious with the countryside rather than an arrogant stamp on an unruly landscape".

Having joined the RHS council in 1998, Buckley became its treasurer in 2002 and president in 2006, succeeding Sir Richard Carew-Pole, with whom he masterminded the fund-raising for the new glasshouse at Wisley; this opened on time in 2006, and on budget at £7.8 million. He took a keen interest in every aspect of the Society's operations, and played an important part in shaping its charitable work.

He was chairman of English & Scottish Investors (1988–2002); of Sterling Industries (1988–2005); the Bristow Helicopter Group (1991–2004); and, from 1996, of Bristow Aviation Holdings.

His non-executive directorships included the Telegraph Group (until 2001), RHS Enterprises, Kerzner International (formerly Sun International Hotels), the Close Brothers Group, and Offshore Logistics (later the Bristow Group).

In May this year Buckley described the Labour Government as "a shabby lot" and asked Caledonia shareholders' permission to donate £75,000 to the Conservative Party. He also condemned what he described as the growing politicisation of the civil service.

Peter Buckley married, in 1967, Mary Barabel Stewart, with whom he had two daughters.

-----------------------

Caledonia appoints two non-executives to appease rebels - Charles Cayzer

By Chris Hughes

Thursday, 29 November 2001
The Independent Close

Caledonia Investments, the controversial investment trust, has appointed two independent non-executive directors, including a top executive from the investment bank Lazard, in a bid to appease rebel shareholders who include the influential Cayzer family. The company also reiterated its commitment to splitting the roles of chairman and chief executive.

Caledonia Investments, the controversial investment trust, has appointed two independent non-executive directors, including a top executive from the investment bank Lazard, in a bid to appease rebel shareholders who include the influential Cayzer family. The company also reiterated its commitment to splitting the roles of chairman and chief executive.

The new appointments are Charles Allen-Jones, a 60-year-old former senior partner at Linklaters & Alliance, the law firm, and Adrian Evans, 62, the London chief executive and global chief operating officer of Lazard.

Peter Buckley, Caledonia's chairman and chief executive, said: "The board is committed to the separation of the roles of chairman and chief executive and the new non-executives will play an important part in implementing this change."

Sir James Cayzer, whose family controls 34 per cent of Caledonia through a trust, is pushing for a facility to be established that would enable shareholders to liquidate their stakes in Caledonia at close the underlying net asset value. Mr Buckley, his cousin, saw off an attempted break-up bid in June this year.

Shares in the company closed down 4.5p at 826.5p yesterday.