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How is the Rothschild family doing now?

The ancients said: "You cannot be rich for three generations. Although the Rothschild family has been rich for three generations, they cannot escape the fate of decline."

Now the Rothschild Bank Group The main business is mergers and acquisitions, which is to help large companies acquire and merge other companies, or reorganize their asset structures. Rothschild's M&A and restructuring business is mainly in Europe, ranking 13th in the world's M&A rankings in 2006.

Currently, Rothschild has an office in Asia - Hong Kong. However, the official name of this office is "ABN AMRO Rothschild" because its business in Asia is under ABN AMRO. Under control, one has little say. Even certain personnel rights are handled by ABN AMRO.

The Rothschild family is currently very small. The Rothschild Banking Group’s annual turnover is less than 10 billion U.S. dollars and its profits are less than 3 billion U.S. dollars. It is estimated that its total capital will not exceed 300 billion U.S. dollars. billion, less than a fraction of that of major European and American banks.

The reason for the decline, first of all, is that the Rothschild family made a strategic error in 1865 and believed that the U.S. economy would not develop significantly, so it canceled all its branches in the United States. This was a fatal mistake that directly led to the rise of the Morgan family.

Secondly, the Rothschild family suffered heavy losses in World War I and World War II. Many of its assets in Germany, France and Italy were destroyed, and its offices in France were even nationalized after World War II. As a Jewish family, the Rothschilds suffered a heavy blow under the Nazi rule. Although the British headquarters basically suffered no losses, the family power on the European continent was basically wiped out. During the Cold War, many of the Rothschild family's assets in Eastern Europe were taken over by the Soviet Union. As you can imagine, these assets will not be returned.

Thirdly, Rothschild’s insistence on the family business also hindered its continued development. Since the 1960s, major banks in Europe and the United States have gone public one after another, raising large amounts of funds. Rothschild still used its own funds to develop, at a slow pace, and gradually fell behind.

The prosperous history of the Rothschild family ended long ago at the end of the 19th century. Today, Rothschild is just an investment bank that ranks among the ten to twenty in the world. It is not large in scale and has no What an excessive ability to control the wind and rain.

Is this really the current situation of the Rothschild family? However, most people believe that as an old financial giant, even though Rothschild Bank has declined, the Rothschild family's industries have spread across many industries and their influence cannot be underestimated. Although only a few people can understand his inside story, in fact, the Rothschild family still exists. Maybe he is not as powerful as the currency war said, but he is still one of the richest families in the world. Some European and American scholars have also studied him, but in the 1980s, many works about him disappeared strangely, and his true situation is still full of mystery. Baron Guy de Rothschild, a descendant of the famous Rothschild family, a banker closely related to the two famous chateaus, Chateau Lafite and Mouton, June 12, 2007 Died in Paris at the age of 98.

Baron Guy de Rothschild was born in 1909. His father was Baron Edouard de Rothschild. Guy's grandfather James (Meyer Rothschild's youngest son) purchased Chateau Lafite in 1868. However, he died shortly after purchasing the winery. Chateau Lafite was inherited by his three sons, Alphonse, Gustave and Edmond. The area is 74 hectares.

The will of the old Rothschild family

Before his death in 1812, the old Rothschild made a strict will:

(1) All important positions in a family bank must be held by family insiders and never by outsiders. Only male family members can participate in family business activities.

(2) Family intermarriage can only be carried out between cousins ??to prevent the dilution and outflow of wealth. (This rule was strictly enforced in the early days, but was later relaxed to allow intermarriage with other Jewish banking families.)

(3) Property information is absolutely not allowed to be announced to the outside world.

(4) Lawyers are absolutely not allowed to get involved in property inheritance.

(5) The eldest son of each family serves as the leader of each family. Only with unanimous consent of the family can another second son be selected to take over.

Anyone who violates the will will lose all property inheritance rights[29].

The Rothschild Wealth Family

The changes in the world's political and economic situation after World War II have caused the Rothschild family to face new challenges. Thanks to its strong ability to adapt to the environment, this ancient family has not been abandoned by the times. Instead, it has consistently maintained its status and dignity through the perfect combination of innovation and tradition, making the Rothschild financial empire a success. The legend lives on.

——Editor

1. Adapting to the environment like an amoeba

The end of World War II also meant the beginning of the Cold War. At this time, the Rothschild family has passed down to the sixth generation, and its financial dynasty has been established for more than 200 years. After experiencing countless storms, whenever times change, the Rothschild family can always rely on its strong adaptability to survive and grow.

The greatest loss caused by the Cold War to the Rothschild family was that their industries in Central and Eastern Europe were isolated on the other side of the "Iron Curtain" and then nationalized by local governments. Because the Rothschild family owns large-scale basic industries such as railways and steel mills in these countries that can generate stable profits, this blow is not unbearable. As the Austrian Rothschild family faded out of Europe and moved to the United States, only two Rothschild banks in Britain and France were still in operation after World War II.

The business characteristics of the new technological revolution era are large-scale population mobility, industrial production and corporate control. The business elite has transformed from the oligarchic "lions" of the gentleman era to the "wolves" of the electronic age. . In a word, conquering the world now depends on everyone working together. No matter how powerful an individual is, it is difficult to resist a huge corporate group alone. With only two banks left, the Rothschild family became a "lonely lion" in comparison. This also made the new generation of the family realize that only by changing themselves can they survive in the new era.

An interesting phenomenon is that whenever there is a major turning point in the times, the media always sneers at the Rothschild family, thinking that this ancient family will soon step off the stage of history like the dinosaurs. But I guess wrong every time. This is precisely because they underestimated the Rothschild family's amoeba-like ability to adapt to the environment. Relying on the two spiritual weapons of "resilience" and "bravery" passed down from generation to generation, the family quickly integrated into the post-war trend of the times and continued to thrive in the business world.

2. The secret of longevity

In 1961, Anthony Ansany, the head of the British branch of the Rothschild family, passed away. He was succeeded by his brother Charles' eldest son Leopold. Also serving as a partner is Ansany’s 29-year-old youngest son Evelyn. In the early 1970s, the young and promising Evelyn brought her cousin Jacob, the fourth Lord Rothschild, into the bank. The joining of the more open-minded Jacob finally led to the British Rothschild Bank to be reborn and appear in the international financial circle with a new image.

As soon as Jacob took office, he led the bank to launch a march into the most advanced field of the modern financial industry-corporate mergers and acquisitions. He personally founded the Mergers and Acquisitions Department of Rothschild Bank and served as its own manager. The M&A department was established only one year ago and has already completed several large business deals. It also helped the Royal Sun Insurance Company, directly under the family, acquire more than 30 peers in other European countries, increasing the company's market value to 1 billion pounds. As the M&A department's performance soared, its number of employees also increased from 1 when it was established to 108, and the business was so large that it had to be managed by 10 managers.

Financing, the old business that Rothschild Bank is best at, has also been rejuvenated in Jacob's hands. The total amount of finance arranged by banks is growing at a rate of £1 billion per year.

The client list includes Shell Oil, British American Tobacco and Philips, and the British government is also a regular customer. When the famous Rolls-Royce went bankrupt due to poor management, the first thing that its bankruptcy broker thought of was to ask Rothschild Bank to find a buyer for the company's most profitable car department.

At almost the same time, the French Rothschild Bank was also undergoing drastic reforms. In 1956, the bank established a wholly-owned subsidiary called PLM, specializing in operating hotel chains, with Eli, the enterprising member of the family, as chairman. Eli worked hard for ten years and built the company into a giant investing in chain hotels, motels and restaurant chains. The first high-end hotel owned by PLM was the Grand Hotel Saint-Jacques, which had 812 rooms and opened in 1972.

Eri's wife Lillian is responsible for the interior decoration of the hotel with her passion for perfection. One month before the opening, she personally led dozens of bank employees to stay in the hotel and conducted rigorous tests on the quality of each room's beds, pillows, mirrors, faucets, bathrooms, hotel restaurants, front desks, laundry rooms and other logistical support. . Lillian's pursuit of details is so demanding that the hot water faucet in the guest room must be able to fill a bathtub in two minutes, the sound of the sewer pipe must be too small to be heard by human ears, and the horns served for breakfast The bread must be hot, crispy, tasty, etc.

The Elis run the hotel with true aristocratic standards, making Saint Jacques the first choice residence for European, American and Japanese wealthy people in France after its opening. Its rooms must be reserved three months in advance. arrive. After years of development, PLM has become a tourism group company. It has opened a large number of motels along the highways in France. It also operates luxury hotels and casinos in Switzerland, Germany, and Italy that serve high-end customers. It is growing day by day. gold.

3. No less than their ancestors

Today’s Rothschilds are no less impressive than those legendary ancestors. Take David, who belongs to the eighth generation of Rothschild descendants. He is a true gentleman, gentle and elegant, and always has a slightly ironic smile on his face. However, in order to consolidate his financial empire, David did not hesitate to poach his competitors and recruit their capable employees to his own staff. Therefore, the 550 employees of French Rothschild Bank are all elite and capable, and can still cope with the competition with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, which have more than 10,000 employees. Like all successful financiers, David is not only a businessman, but also a psychologist. He often said: "If you want to recruit talented people, you have to find ways to make them happy. Once they feel happy, you have to find ways to urge them to work hard and make profits."

France Rothschild Another extremely wealthy member of the Erd family was Adolf, the grandson of Edmund, the founder of Israel. Immediately after the end of World War II, at the age of 20, he decided to join business and relied on his ancestral keen sense to focus his investment on the most profitable emerging industry-mass tourism. To this end, he bought a large stake in the InterContinental Hotel in the United States and took control of this most profitable international hotel chain. In addition, it also built holiday villas in the tourist resort of Mallorca in eastern Spain, owned a luxurious sanatorium in Israel, participated in the construction of high-end villa areas in Paris, and invested in the development of the tropical tourist resorts of Guadeloupe and Guadeloupe in the Western Indian Ocean. Martinique...

In Switzerland, Adolf invested in the construction of the world's highest ski resort-Megève Ski Resort. It is located on a snow-capped mountain at an altitude of 5,000 feet. The supporting luxury hotel has a heated swimming pool with a glass roof and a large terrace used to take off and land helicopters, which can take skiers directly to the ski resort on the top of the mountain. In 1963, when the Megève ski resort opened, Adolf chartered two special planes and invited 120 dignitaries from Paris and New York to attend the opening ceremony. He also bought $8 million in insurance for the jewelry worn by the female relatives of these dignitaries. After the opening of the Megève ski resort, it has firmly occupied the status of a "holy place" among ski enthusiasts around the world. The 007 series of movies "The King of Steel" was filmed here.

In fact, Adolf's business empire spanned Europe, America and the Middle East.

In addition to running the tourism industry, he also owns a private bank in Paris and Geneva, and also controls France's largest toy company and frozen food company. In addition, Adolf also serves as a director of Belgium's Lambert Bank and South Africa's De Beers Group; in Israel, he indirectly controls the country's central bank through his owned Istep Investment Company.

4. Will compete head-on with China Investment Corporation

In July 2007, international media widely reported that, following Blackstone, the China State Foreign Exchange Investment Corporation ("CIC"), with assets of hundreds of billions of dollars, might Joined BHP Billiton (BHP) in the form of equity participation. However, not many people know that BHP Billiton's equity is also inextricably linked to the Rothschild family.

As the world's largest iron ore manufacturer, the third largest copper producer and the second largest coal exporter, Australia's Olympic Dam, owned by BHP Billiton, accounts for 40% of the world's uranium reserves. At the end of 2005, the company's market value reached US$88.3 billion. As we all know, planned acquisition of global resource product reserve companies is the best way to quickly gain a voice in the resource market. China's acquisition of equity interests in international resource giants that control global resource reserves and sales is much more effective and cost-effective than simply purchasing resources.

In the past, every spring, BHP Billiton would make China's steel production companies nervous, and the psychological shadow of iron ore negotiations was difficult to eliminate. But now, the National Foreign Exchange Investment Corporation is giving them hope. It seems that as time goes by, Rothschild and China, an emerging economy, will surely have an increasingly closer relationship through certain ties. Everyone is waiting to see what kind of situation will emerge in the commercial war negotiations between China and the Rothschild family, which has a century-old wealth.

5. Acting low-key, but omnipresent

After more than 250 years of changes, the Rothschild family appears to have become smaller, but in fact it has become larger. Unlike the flamboyant American capitalism, the Rothschild family operates in a low-key manner. Most people can only encounter it when reading history books. But the reality is, it's everywhere.

Until now, the Rothschild family's bank has refused to go public, which means it does not have to publish an annual report at all. Over the past two hundred years, only the core members of the family know how much business they have invested in the earth and how much money they have made. Its influence on the world economy can only be discovered by a very small number of careful professionals - just imagine, how can ordinary people see the shadow of the Rothschild family from the skyrocketing price of iron ore a few years ago? Similarly, only a few people can find out the extent of the Rothschild family's involvement in the new economy represented by the Internet. In fact, it was the Rothschild family that acted as a financing consultant for the British government's 3G mobile communication license auction in 2004 - but this news was never seen in the Wall Street Journal.

Just as Ford is synonymous with the American automobile industry, the Rothschild family has long become a symbol of the financial industry. After 250 years of ups and downs, this family is still prosperous, accompanied by wealth and powerful people. Be company. The passage of time has not changed the way it succeeds at all. In this regard, the German poet Heine once said a very classic saying: Money is the God of our era, and Rothschild is its prophet.

(Excerpt from "The Mysterious Trillion-Dollar Family—The True Story of the Richest Jewish Man, Rothschild", first edition of World Knowledge Press, January 2008, serialization completed)

Please refer to the book "Currency War" (CITIC Press)

Supplement

The Red Shield family has a major connection with Zionism. At the beginning of the 20th century, it provided millions of dollars in funds to the early Jewish immigrants who moved to Palestine to help them purchase land and production equipment and live and work in peace and contentment; it also actively participated in the re-establishment of the Jewish nation.

The "Balfour Declaration" promulgated by the British government declared that Palestine would become the "home of the Jewish nation" and later became the blueprint for the establishment of the state of Israel. This famous historical document was written by the British Foreign Office to the British branch of the Rothschild family. Published in the name of Lord Nathaniel Mayer Victor Rothschild.

The Red Shield family’s Jewish heritage and connection with the Zionist movement have naturally made them the target of successive anti-Semitic attacks. During the era of Nazi rule in Germany, many members of the German branch of the Rothschild family were killed. In addition, various conspiracy theories based on anti-Semitism with the Red Shield family as the protagonists of the story have also become popular, satisfying some people's imagination about the family's hidden wealth and behavior. "The Money Masters" and its Chinese counterpart "Currency Wars" are neither the first nor the last.

The story of the Red Shield family has also been adapted to the screen and stage. The 1934 Hollywood movie "The House of Rothschild" starring George Arliss and Loretta Young used Meyer's life as the main line of the story. Several clips of the film were used in the Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda "Derewige Jude" (The Outsider Jew). The Broadway musical "The Rothschilds" was also nominated for a Tony Award in 1971.

In both French and Hebrew, Rothschild is synonymous with wealth. So how rich is the Rothschild family now? Rothschild Banking Group's current annual turnover is less than 10 billion U.S. dollars, and its profit is less than 3 billion U.S. dollars. Calculated at an interest rate of 10, its assets are worth about 30 billion U.S. dollars, which is only a fraction of large banks such as HSBC Citigroup. . The main reason is that the Rothschild family was not optimistic about the U.S. economy in the mid-19th century and closed all branches in the United States. This was a huge mistake in hindsight, and gave the Morgan family room in the United States to rise. So those conspiracy theories claiming that the Rothschild family has great influence on the American economy are so far-fetched. In addition, the Rothschild family suffered heavy losses in World War II. Under the Nazi rule and the war, many of its assets in Germany, France, and Italy disappeared, and little of its family power on the European continent remained. The assets in the United Kingdom were relatively well preserved.

The Red Shield Family was very glorious in the past and is still doing so now. It seems that the virtue of a gentleman will last for five lifetimes. The way for the Red Shield family to get rich is simply to understand politics and economics. Regardless of politics, only making money is in your sights, but there is no guarantee of making money or keeping the money you make; knowing how to play politics can make a lot of money, but you can also keep the money you make.

The media has over-hyped it, and it is no longer what it used to be.