When Jeffries International bought The Europe Company, the specialist pan-European institutional broker, in July, one of the principal attractions, it was widely acknowledged, was the managing director Henry Reid.
Reid founded The Europe Company in 1991, and thereafter managed nine years of growth and high profitability. This year he was ranked third in the Reuters individual broker analyst league table for smaller European companies, while the brokerage came eighth for small company sales. As the tables suggest, Reid's standing in the City is high. "He's a great broker and a great money maker," says one admirer. "Although he's a rich man in his own right (his mother was a Cabot, of the Boston family) he's tremendously driven. He's also very bright with a lot of integrity. He's very unlikely to lose your money."
Reid was born in London in 1958, the son of the celebrated Second World War escapee Major Pat Reid, the mastermind of three escape attempts from Colditz, two of them successful.
Henry was the youngest of five children from Major Reid's marriage to Jane Cabot. His father's book, The Colditz Story, had come out in 1953, and by the time Henry was born, his father was farming in Sussex.