Sir Angus Grossart

He was educated at Glasgow Academy and Glasgow University, where he obtained an LLB following an MA.

He had begun developing his business skills selling cut-price confectionery on a stall in the Barrowland market.

“Stuff that had gone a little wonky in the making… decapitated jelly babies or tablet that was either extraordinarily hard or slightly soft. It was like a business school class in getting off your backside and actually doing something.”

In 1962 he qualified as a chartered accountant before being called to the bar where he specialised in corporate tax law and often appeared as junior to James Mackay QC, later Lord Mackay of Clashfern.

While he enjoyed advocacy he found the bar “a little cloistered” and in 1969 founded Noble Grossart with Sir Iain Noble.

It was “the craft workshop of the merchant banking sector” and focused on identifying promising companies, raising capital for them and advising on mergers and acquisitions.

He sought to back ventures in which “the downside is limited and the upside can be stimulated”, avoiding labour-intensive or overly bureaucratic ones.

In 1974, Noble Grossart proved it was a serious competitor to the London merchant banks when it advised the Kuwait Investment Office on the takeover of a UK property company. 

Sir Angus himself was, said one observer, “living proof of the old adage that the quieter someone is, the more power they wield”.

He was appointed CBE in 1990 and knighted in 1997. In 1978 he married Fay Thomson, a well-known Scottish contemporary painter, with whom he had a daughter.