General Investing >> Money Manager Interviews >> September 22, 1997
ROBERT A.B. NICOLLE has been a Director of Matheson Investment Limited,
which is part of the Jardine Matheson Group since 1989, having taken
early retirement from Kleinwort Benson where he had spent the whole of
his working career. He joined Kleinwort Sons and Company in 1958 as a
graduate trainee and later was seconded to New York to work as a trainee
with Goldman Sachs in 1960. He was appointed a director of Kleinwort
Benson in 1973 and of Kleinwort Benson Investment Management when it was
formed in 1978. He was also a director of Kleinwort Overseas Investment
Trust and chairman of Kleinwort Benson International Fund NV and Signet
Fund (Bermuda) Ltd. Under his control over twenty years Signet Fund was
one of the best performing offshore funds in the United Kingdom. His
responsibilities were for institutional accounts and very wealthy
private individuals. He was also a director of Kleinwort Benson (Jersey)
and Kleinwort Benson (Guernsey) and Compliance Officer of Kleinwort
Benson Investment Management. Outside of MIML he is a director and
member of both the investment and audit committees of the London Board
of the Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Company of Australia. He is a
member of the investment committee of New Enterprise Associates in
Baltimore, probably the largest independent seed capital and start-up
venture capital partnership in the United States. He was a financial
adviser to the World Wide Fund for Nature (formerly the World Wildlife
Fund) headquarters in Switzerland. He became the treasurer of the Iris
Fund for prevention of blindness in 1973 when it had a total capital of
L16,000. Its income has grown steadily and in 1996 was approximately L1
1/4 million the main beneficiary being the Eye department of St. Thomas'
Hospital. He became an advisor to the Special Trustees of St. Thomas
Hospital in 1980 and a Special Trustee in 1982. This is possibly the
best endowed hospital in England. He was born in 1934, educated at Eton
and Cambridge --degree in Natural Sciences -- and served as a 2nd
Lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards on active service in the troubles in
Cyprus in 1957/58. He married in 1963 and has three children, 2 boys and
a girl. His interests include gardening, riding and the arts. Profile
firm?
Mr. Nicolle: My firm is owned by Jardine Matheson, the big,
international Hong Kong company and we are part of
