Durlacher's 'old guard' finance chief quits

Durlacher, whose fortunes have mirrored the roller coaster rise and fall of the dot.com sector, yesterday pushed ahead with its boardroom clear out, parting company with its finance director, Graeme Gordon.

Mr Gordon, who left the company on Monday, was the last of the old guard who transformed Durlacher into a new economy specialist. He has received considerably less than his annual salary of £125,000 as a pay-off.

His departure marks the end of a period of dramatic swings in the fortunes of Durlacher and is part of the move by its new chief executive, Christopher Stainforth, to anchor the business back in the old-fashioned world of stock broking and fund management.

Mr Stainforth, who was recruited in April last year, is thought to have felt Mr Gordon was not the right person to implement his planned changes to Durlacher. He said he was feeling "fairly positive" about finding a new finance director soon, who will be an external appointment.

Mr Gordon's departure follows the removal last year of Geoffrey and Graham Chamberlain, the brothers who spearheaded Durlacher's move to become a boutique investment house for new technology companies.

Durlacher expanded exponentially in the late 1990s. 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.

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

Just before Christmas Durlacher raised £4m to bankroll its switch back into a straight-forward stockbroker for small and mid-cap companies, an area many banks are getting out of because they are not profitable at the moment.

Mr Stainforth, who joined from the European mergers and acquisition specialist Ermgassen, proved he has made some progress.

Durlacher posted first-half pre-tax profits of £2.6m, lifted by gains on convertible debentures, against a £1.7m loss last time. Operating losses on continuing operations were reduced by 41 per cent to £2.5m.