The asset management industry loses some colour and personality with the retirement from the business of former Jupiter boss Edward Bonham Carter. His quirky dress style, his continually inquiring mind and frequent quips were accompanied by a thoroughly decent persona and a sharp and determined business mind. He also cycled to and from work, rather than the chauffeured service a CEO could claim. However, you underestimated EBC at your peril.

I got to know him around 20 years ago after he had been catapulted into the CEO position following the acrimonious departure of Jupiter founder John Duffield, who had sold the business to Commerzbank and then fell out with the new owner.

EBC had both survived and thrived in the Duffield era and, although this is probably forgotten now, was a really good fund manager who won Citywire’s inaugural individual fund manager of the year award. This was no mean feat – coming top of all fund managers in our database at the time, based on his three-year, risk-adjusted performance.

He later said he would fire himself as a fund manager if his performance declined. It did, and he kept his word! However, he stayed on as CEO, of course.

EBC had no illusions about the asset management industry, both its strengths and contradictions.

The latter includes the difficulty of performing well when assets grow. Another challenge is whether it suits asset management companies to list on the stock market.

His best hire – a bargain at the time – was the fund-of-funds team from Lazard, which for a time powered growth in assets under management. He also promoted Ariel Bezalel from the back office to bond fund manager – a smart move, as this raised a lot of new money and changed the nature of Jupiter from being almost a pure equity shop.

While he liked to back his fund managers, occasionally too much, he did not eschew tough decisions.

His determination could be seen in many areas, including at the table tennis table, where he was incredibly competitive and hated to lose even so-called ‘friendly’ games.

He was also highly respected by his fund managers – Jupiter has been a company where the managers carried a lot of influence. He led the buyout of Jupiter in terms that impressed his colleagues, making sure private equity backer TA Associates only got a minority stake. EBC hated debt and despite the 2008 crash managed to steer Jupiter successfully to a listing and, it has to be said, made a lot of money for everyone involved. That said, he was for a time the largest individual shareholder, so the recent collapse in the share price, while tempered by dividends, will be painful.

The business has struggled without EBC at the helm. Although he hung around – to be available to his successors, rather than interfering – he gave up management responsibilities. None of this was about ego – I’ve never seen EBC feel the need to boost himself at the expense of others – and indeed he comes over as someone very comfortable in his own skin. (He did, however, have a stock response to those who asked him if he was related to the actress Helena Bonham Carter, along the lines of him being her famous brother!)

While people talk about his paternal great-grandfather, the former prime minister Herbert Henry Asquith, it was on his mother’s side that real heroics happened. Her father, as the first secretary of the Spanish embassy in Paris, later Bordeaux and Vichy France rescued thousands of Jews from being deported to near-certain death during the Second World War by issuing them with transit visas to reach relative safety in Portugal, in defiance of the Franco regime’s policy.

Edward was very interested in this story and helped his grandfather earn posthumous recognition, attending the Jerusalem ceremony to honour him as a Righteous Among the Nations.

Asset management will miss EBC’s insight and quick wit. However, this is not an obituary – heaven forfend – and perhaps he will remain a presence in the wealth management arena, where he retains an interest through Netwealth, where he is its chairman.