Profile: The Flemings

The money-making flair of the family that gave us James Bond, and how the clan has retained its influence.

"The family that gave the world James Bond is no slouch when it comes to finance," says Robert Cole in The Times. The original Robert Fleming made his pile selling sandbags to both sides in the American Civil War and, 140 years later, his descendants are still displaying the Goldfinger touch. Having sold one family business to the Americans at the very top of the stockmarket in 2000, they have hit the jackpot for the second time. Last week's deal to sell 20% of Fleming Family & Partners (FF&P) to Standard Chartered for £45m represents a 49-fold return in five years: "not all dynasties go from clogs to clogs in three generations".

Starting in America

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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.