Our history
Our roots are found in Liverpool, the birthplace of Rathbones. Long before we became an investment manager, Rathbones was a timber merchant business established by the Rathbone family in the 1720s. Subsequent generations took the family business into shipping and overseas trade before moving into managing money at the beginning of the last century.
The relationship between Rathbones and Liverpool is one of the threads connecting our past, present and future. Though we are now a UK-wide company with a London head office, Liverpool remains an important part of Rathbones.
Our office there is an example of how our business continues to adapt and change. The historic Port of Liverpool Building on the waterfront is a reminder of our beginnings. The modern operations centre we have created within shows a business thinking ahead.
The values of our predecessors continue to guide us because they are still relevant. You can see the influence of our Quaker heritage in the importance we place on honesty, integrity and independence. We are very aware of the trust that our clients place in us. We strive to earn it by putting these values at the heart of our daily work.
The Rathbone family also passed on their strong commitment to ethics in business. Ethics are at the centre of all our activities. The part played by Rathbones in the abolition of the slave trade is an early example of the activism carried on today by our ethical investment business Rathbone Greenbank, named after the Rathbone family home in Liverpool.
The Rathbone family believed in public service, contributing to the improvement of healthcare and education for the people of Liverpool. This tradition has also endured. Through our involvement in sport and education, we support the development of young people across the UK. Every year our employees raise substantial amounts of money for charity and contribute their time to a wide range of charitable and civic activities.
All of these principles have served us well. They have remained constant as Rathbones has evolved from family business into independent FTSE 250 public company. Throughout our history, we’ve kept our focus on building relationships and providing a level of service that encourages our clients to recommend us to others.
As a forward-looking company, we are more interested in the years ahead than those gone by. However, we have found that remembering where we have come from, and learning from the past, is a good way to achieve success in the future.
