BRANCHES OF ROTHSCHILD EMPIRE SETTLE DISPUTE OVER FAMILY NAME
Warring branches of the Rothschild banking dynasty have settled a dispute over the family name after a bitter three-year French legal fight that centred on which part of the clan could claim the moniker of their 18th century patriarch Mayer Amschel Rothschild.
Edmond de Rothschild, a FrancoSwiss private bank and € 156 billion asset manager that also owns vineyards and the new Four Seasons Hotel Megève, had issued a cease-and-desist order to French bank Rothschild & Cie, arguing its owners unfairly referred to themselves as “parent of the Rothschild group” — implying it had sole claim to the name.
Friday’s agreement between Rothschild & Co, the Anglo-French parent of Rothschild & Cie, and Edmond de Rothschild would bar both groups from using the Rothschild name by itself in branding. Instead, they will use only their full names to build future business and both vowed to “work together to protect the family name in the banking sector.”
The deal, which will also see the groups unwind cross-shareholdings in each other, was reached only after David de Rothschild, 75, retired as chairman of Rothschild & Co, handing the reins to his son Alexandre, who became the seventh generation of the family to lead the bank.
“This made David more amenable to a resolution,” said one person close to the elder Mr. De Rothschild. “The last thing he wanted to do was to pass to his son an unclear situation. He wanted a clean slate for Alexandre.”
In 2012, the elder Mr. De Rothschild oversaw a merger of the then separate French bank and UK merchant bank NM Rothschild & Sons, which unified its corporate structure under the French parent group and put an end to decades of cross- Channel rivalry.
Rothschild & Co’s private banking and asset management activities in France, Belgium and Monaco will continue to use the name Rothschild Martin Maurel. This business is the result of a 2017 merger between Rothschild & Co’s private bank in France and the Banque Martin Maurel, a French private bank headquartered in Marseille.
The lawsuit was one of the first acts of Ariane de Rothschild, who took over as chief executive of Edmond de Rothschild in 2015. Benjamin de Rothschild — who is chairman of Edmond de Rothschild Group and the husband of Ariane — has publicly fretted that bad blood between the two branches could have led Rothschild & Cie to be sold one day, along with the family name.
The settlement requires the branches to tidy up their complex cross-ownership structures. Rothschild & Co’s Swiss holding company owns a 8.4% stake in Edmond de Rothschild. At the same time, 9.5% of the capital of Rothschild & Co’s Swiss holding company is held by Edmond de Rothschild, and a 5.7% stake in Rothschild & Co is held by Edmond de Rothschild.
Rothschild & Co will stop using the www.rothschild.com domain name and move to its website to www.rothschildandco. as well as changing employee e-mail addresses and signatures.
Three- fifths of Rothschild & Co’s revenues are made up of global advisory work including mergers and acquisitions. The balance is made up of its two other divisions — wealth and asset management, and merchant banking — which Alexandre de Rothschild has said the group plans to expand, potentially through acquisitions.
In the first quarter, Rothschild & Co’s revenues dropped 14% to €420.1 million, dragged down by advisory revenues, which dropped a fifth. Meanwhile, wealth and asset management revenues were up 2% during the three months, and revenues in its small merchant banking division gained 29%.