Banque Rothschild

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from
De Rothschild Frères
)
Not to be confused with
Rothschild & Cie Banque or Rothschild & Co
.
"de Rothschild Frères" redirects here. For other Rothschild-branded banks, see Rothschild Bank (disambiguation).
The former seat of the Banque Rothschild on rue Laffitte in Paris, demolished in 1969

The Banque Rothschild, formally known as de Rothschild Frères (lit. 'Rothschild Brothers') until 1967, was the family-controlled bank of the Rothschild banking family of France. It was established in 1817, expropriated by Vichy France in 1940, returned to the Rothschilds after the liberation of France in 1944, and nationalized in 1982 after which it operated under the name of its subsidiary Compagnie Européenne de Banque (lit. 'European Banking Company') and was eventually sold in 1991 to Barclays. It played a major role in French financial development in the 19th century, and remained significant for much of the 20th century.

History

Naples, Nathan of London and Salomon of Vienna. In 1822 the five brothers were awarded the hereditary title of Baron by Emperor Francis I of Austria
, after which James used the nobility particle "de" before his name, and the bank was subsequently known formally as de Rothschild Frères.

The Banque Rothschild was very active in lending to governments. Following the

Legion of Honor. Following the Franco-Prussian War, in 1871–1872 the bank put together a syndicate that raised the five billion francs the country was obliged to pay Prussia under the terms of Armistice of Versailles.[1]

The Banque Rothschild then expanded its investment banking activities. In partnership with

Rio Tinto copper mines. The new owners restructured the company and turned it into a profitable business. By 1905, the Rothschild interest in Rio Tinto amounted to more than 30 percent. In 1887, the French and English Rothschild banking houses lent money to, and invested in, the De Beers diamond mines in South Africa, becoming its largest shareholders. In the 1930s, however, the bank's vast railroad holdings were nationalized
.

The bank's growth was spectacular and near-continuous. According to the bank's records, in 1815 the capital of the Paris banking house James Mayer de Rothschild founded amounted to £55,000 (equivalent to £4 million in 2019); by 1852 the figure was £3,541,700 (equivalent to £431.5 million in 2019), and in 1878, just ten years after his death, £16,914,000 (equivalent to £1.81 billion in 2019).[2]

After James, the Banque Rothschild was run by his sons

Edouard.[3] James de Rothschild had stipulated "that the three branches of the family descended from him always be represented." For the next seven decades that was the case but in 1939, Edouard and his cousin Robert de Rothschild (son of Gustave), experiencing friction with their other cousin Maurice de Rothschild (son of Edmond), bought out the latter's share. Maurice went on to be enormously successful and, having inherited a fortune from the childless Adolph Carl von Rothschild of the Naples branch of the family, moved to Geneva
, Switzerland, thus establishing a new Swiss branch of the family.

In 1940, the

Nazi occupiers forced the Rothschilds to sell the bank together with their other French properties.[4] It was returned to the Rothschild family following the Liberation of France
.

In 1949,

Time magazine
.

Following France's 1966 banking reform, on 1 January 1968 the partnership de Rothschild Frères was re-organized as Banque Rothschild, a limited-liability company.[3]

By 1980, the Paris business employed about 2,000 people and had an annual turnover of 26 billion francs ($5 billion in the currency rates of 1980).[5]

Nationalization and aftermath

In 1982, the recently elected Socialist government of François Mitterrand nationalized the Banque Rothschild and rebranded it Compagnie Européenne de Banque,[6] the name of a former mortgage subsidiary. That bank was privatized in 1991 and acquired by Barclays.

In 1987,

N M Rothschild & Sons of London, the English and French firms merged into Rothschild & Co
under the leadership of David de Rothschild.

Head office

In 1818, James Rothschild purchased the former hôtel particulier of 18th-century financier Jean Joseph de Laborde, on rue d'Artois in Paris (No. 19-21). That property had been owned by Joseph Fouché, and purchased from him by Count Moritz von Fries and a Prague-based partner; Fouché still had briefly lived there during the Hundred Days in 1815.[7] To its south lied the Hôtel de la reine Hortense [fr], and to its north the mansion of Anne Jean Marie René Savary,[8] both of which would later be absorbed into the Rothschild compound. Further north (No. 27) lied the mansion of banker Jacques Laffitte, after whom the street was renamed in 1830 (during his lifetime) as rue Laffitte.

In 1836, James de Rothschild had his property remodeled by designers Duponchel and Bellenger. In 1838, he purchased the storied

Rue Saint-Florentin and moved there, but the bank remained on rue Laffitte, so that the street's name later became a metonymy
for the Banque Rothschild.

In 1969, as the bank was expanding into new lines of business, the Rothschilds demolished the historic building and replace it with a modernist office building designed by prominent French architect Pierre Dufau together with American Max Abramovitz,[8] and inaugurated in early 1970.[3] That building has been more recently used as headquarters by Malakoff Humanis [fr], a health care services and pensions group.[9]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Hubert Bonin (16 August 2013). "La banque Rothschild, une histoire de famille". Le Monde.
  2. ^ The House of Rothschild (vol. 2) : The World's Banker: 1849–1999, Niall Ferguson
  3. ^ a b c d "Brief history of the Paris house, de Rothschild Frères". The Rothschild Archive.
  4. ^ Rothschild. "Guide to the business records of de Rothschild Frères, Paris". Archived from the original on 2012-03-31. Retrieved 2014-05-21.
  5. ^ RPT-French banker Guy de Rothschild dies aged 98 Reuters, Thu 14 Jun 2007 12:26 pm EDT
  6. ^ a b Baron Guy de Rothschild, Leader of French Arm of Bank Dynasty, Dies at 98 The New York Times, Thu 14 Jun 2007
  7. ^ "Fouché Joseph". Paris révolutionnaire. 18 November 2010.
  8. ^ a b Commission du Vieux Paris. "Séance plénière du 20/01/2022" (PDF). paris.fr.
  9. ^ "Siège de Malakoff Humanis : L'ancienne banque Rothschild". Paris Promeneurs.
Stub icon 1 Stub icon 2

This bank and insurance-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Banque_Rothschild&oldid=1187427833"