No.128
The Trusty Servant
Peter Stormonth Darling
(C, 40-45) died on 16 th September, 2019
David Rosier (I, 64-69) remembers:
I was lucky enough to know Peter
Stormonth Darling, or Peter Darling as
he always introduced himself, or PSD
as he was known to his many friends
and colleagues, since 1978 when I joined
SG Warburg & Co Ltd, of which he
was then Vice-Chairman. When I
became a director in 1984, there were no
less than six other OWs on the board
(PSD, George Jellicoe (E, 31-36), Andrew
Smithers (D, 51-55), Roger Harrison-
Topham (K, 53-58), John Sanders (F,
56-61) and Jock Birney (C, 57-62)).
Peter was quite clear about the influence
his time at Win Coll had on his later
life and hugely successful career in the
City. Like his father and two brothers,
he was a Cookite: his cousins were
also Wykehamists. In return, Peter was
hugely generous to Win Coll and, with
his friend the Wall Street entrepreneur
Al Gordon, he set up a significant
sports fund. He also served on many
Win Coll committees.
At Win Coll, Peter developed his
passion for cricket, playing for Lords
for two years. This passion was to last
throughout his life. He also developed
a love of writing – he was an inveterate
letter writer – and an attention to detail,
all of which were to stand him in good
stead in his subsequent career.
After leaving school, National Service
in his family regiment, the Black
Watch, beckoned and he volunteered
to extend his required service period
to go to Korea. In his own words,
‘I knew instantly that if I said no I
would regret it for the rest of my life
and would chastise myself for being a
coward.’ Peter fought in the intensely
gruelling second Battle of the Hook: the
experience, he wrote, ‘stretched to the
limit whatever qualities of leadership I
may have possessed.’
After Law at New College, and,
more importantly, captaining the
New College cricket team, where he
often recalled that he had seen Roger
Bannister run the first sub-four-minute
mile at Iffley Road, Peter moved to
Canada. In 1957, he was introduced
to Siegmund Warburg, who hired him
to work for Warburg’s Canadian joint
venture. Thus began a relationship
with Warburg that lasted for over 40
years and culminated in Peter becoming
the Chairman of the investment-
management arm, which floated as
Mercury Asset Management in 1987.
As Chairman of MAM, Peter presided
over what became the largest and
most influential fund-management
firm in the UK, with £100 billion
under management. His leadership
qualities were stretched again as he also
presided over a group of opinionated,
occasionally difficult, yet talented fund
managers. But, with his open and
charming manner and infectious sense
of humour, he managed to ‘herd this
group of cats’ into becoming the most
successful fund-management business in
the UK.
Peter was self-deprecating to a fault and,
in his memoir City Cinderella, the Life
and Times of Mercury Asset Management,
declared that the success of the firm was
the work of others and that he became
Chairman only because he happened
to be around at the right time and was
older than most of the other potential
candidates.
In the early 90s I persuaded Peter to join
me on a trip to the Gulf. Our first stop
was Oman and, on the first morning,
we made a courtesy call on the British
Ambassador: we had received the
usual Foreign Office briefing about His
Excellency, who had previously been
Head of the Africa desk. All was going
well until Peter asked him what he
8
thought about the situation in South
Africa, where Nelson Mandela had
just been released from jail, to which
the Ambassador replied that he had no
particular knowledge of the country.
The next question about his wife,
prompted by our briefing notes, seemed
to be equally wide of the mark – the
Ambassador was apparently a bachelor
– and we hastily changed tack and
talked about our ambitions in Oman.
On leaving, we discovered that my PA
had sent us details on our Ambassador
to Amman (Jordan), rather than Oman!
My sheepish admission of this was met
by roars of laughter from Peter.
Peter was admired and respected for
his wisdom, adroit and pragmatic
leadership and loved for his wonderful
sense of humour, his eye for quirkiness
and the absurdity of life. He was a great
raconteur and particularly enjoyed
telling stories against himself. One
such tale, told with brilliant mimicry,
was about Henry Grunfeld, one of the
Warburg ‘Uncles’, who announced at a
meeting with other senior directors that
he had asked for an updated graphology
report (for which Warburg was
notorious) on Peter’s handwriting which
apparently showed that ‘Stormonth
Darling is deteriorating’. Peter was then
at the height of his powers!
Above all, I will always remember
Peter’s deep interest in people and what
made them tick. The joy of working for,
and becoming a friend of, Peter was that
he seemed genuinely interested in what
one was doing, and it was this interest
in people that engendered so much
loyalty from his friends and colleagues
and kept him young to the end.