Prince Rupert Loewenstein, the former business manager of The Rolling Stones, has died aged 80.
The Bavarian banker, full name Rupert Louis Ferdinand Frederick Constantine Lofredo Leopold Herbert Maximilian Hubert John Henry zu Loewenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg, was the long-term financial advisor to the band for 40 years. He is understood to have died peacefully in the early hours of yesterday (May 20) after a battle with a long illness, reports Music Week.
In an article in Forbes, Keith Richards called Loewenstein “the mastermind of our setup.”
Loewenstein is credited with turning around the band’s financial fortunes. During almost four decades of handling the Stones’ affairs he helped Mick Jagger alone amass an estimated fortune of £200 million.
Loewenstein, the managing director of the merchant bank Leopold Joseph & Co, was invited to look after the Stones finances at the personal invitation of Jagger. His advice in the early 1970s prompted the band to abandon their UK residence for the south of France, helping them save millions while becoming Britain’s first musical tax exiles. He ended his business relationship with the band four decades later, in 2007.
He was born in Majorca in 1933 to Prince Leopold of the royal house of Wittelsbach, but was educated in England and studied History at Magdalen College in Oxford before going on to work in the City.
His funeral will be held on Friday (May 30) in London.