Durlacher duo quit as dot.com dream dies

The two brothers who made Durlacher one of the biggest beneficiaries of the dot.com boom are to step down next month as part of a refocusing of the investment house away from new technology stocks.

The announcement that Geoffrey and Graham Chamberlain, chairman and finance director of Durlacher respectively, are going comes after the appointment of a new chief executive, Christopher Stainforth.

Mr Stainforth, who joined from the European mergers and acquisition specialist Ermgassen, is known to want to steer Durlacher away from its past as a new economy specialist and towards becoming a more generalist stock broker and fund manager.

The company expanded exponentially in the late 1990s, after Geoffrey Chamberlain grasped at an early stage the potential of internet ventures. Having floated on Aim in September 1995 for £800,000, it swelled to a valuation of £2bn, bringing it close to the brink of becoming a FTSE 100 stock.

But its fall was nearly as dramatic, partly because business dried up so rapidly and partly because it had invested in a number of technology ventures which have now lost much of their value.

Mr Stainforth said: "I would like to thank Geoffrey and Graham for their services. I look forward to working with the new directors to continue to refocus Durlacher as an investment bank and stockbroker with a focus across a range of sectors."

Tony Caplin, a non-executive director of Durlacher, will step up to the position of non-executive chairman. Graeme Gordon, Durlacher's compliance officer, will take over as finance director and Jack Wigglesworth, also a director at the company, is to become non-executive deputy chairman.