Ben Goldsmith

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Benjamin James Goldsmith (born 28th October 1980)[1] in London is an English financier and environmentalist.

Contents

[edit] Career

Goldsmith is a founding partner of WHEB Ventures Limited a venture capital fund that invests in clean technologies, and of its sister company Ruston WHEB. He got an early start in business in his late teens when, after spending six months working at private client brokers, Hargreave-Hale, he and school friend Michael Radomir, sought out clean technology businesses for his uncle Edward Goldsmith and others to invest in. He focused on renewable energy, energy efficiency technologies, alternatives to chemicals, and clean industrial processes.

Goldsmith's investment portfolio is manifold and includes a lucrative sports betting company, Fitzdares, as well as several restaurants and clubs, including the members' only Drones Club in Mayfair. He sometimes works with his brothers Zac Goldsmith and Robin Birley. They also backed the unsuccessful magazine 'The Sportsman'.[2] In August 2006, the Goldsmith brothers made a bid for the Clermont Club, the casino above Annabel's, the nightclub named for their mother, but they were thwarted by Malaysian billionaire Quek Leng Chan.[3] Goldsmith is a shareholder of Luxury Publishing Ltd, the publisher of Annabel's Diamond and Fashion the nightclub's house magazine.[4]

In 2004, he gave £20 000.00 to the UK Green Party.[5] In recent years he has contributed generously to the UK Conservative Party as well as individual candidates like Tory MP Michael Gove and the so-called "Notting Hill set of Conservative modernisers".[6]

[edit] Education

Goldsmith attended Eton College.

Once considered to be anti-bloodsports, he has since spoken out against the ban on fox hunting in the UK, stating that the "ban on fox hunting has nothing to do with animal welfare. If it was, then antis would be campaigning as heavily against factory farming...It's another step in the dismantling of tradition."[7]

[edit] Personal Life

Goldsmith is the youngest child of the late billionaire Sir James Goldsmith and his 3rd wife Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart. He has an older sister, Jemima Goldsmith, and an older brother, Zac Goldsmith. His father famously conducted concurrent liaisons with his second wife, Ben's mother and his mistresses[8], including Ben's first cousin Lady Cosima Somerset, daughter of Annabel's brother, the 9th Marquess of Londonderry.[9] In 1981, his father left Ben's family in England and went to live in New York[10] with his mistress.[11]

Goldsmith has several half-siblings: Isabel Goldsmith from his father's first marriage, Alix and Manes from his father's second marriage and by his father's mistress Laure Boulay, Comtesse de la Meurthe[12], he has two younger half-siblings, Jethro and Charlotte.[13] From his mother's first marriage to nightclub magnate Mark Birley he has two brothers Rupert (now deceased) and Robin Birley and a sister India Jane Birley.

Goldsmith was raised in Surrey at Ormeley Lodge and in France.[14] When his father died of pancreatic cancer in 1997, he inherited an estimated £300 million fortune.


[edit] Marriage and Family

In 2003 he married heiress Kate Rothschild, daughter of the late Amschel Rothschild and his wife Anita Guinness of the Guinness Brewery family. The couple have two children. Their wedding was attended by 600 guests, thickly layered with blue-blooded Old Etonian friends, among them Lord Frederick Windsor and Alexander Spencer-Churchill. [15].

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ http://worldroots.com/brigitte/royal/plantagenet/jamesgoldsmithdesc1933.htm
  2. ^ Webb, Tim (7 May 2006) "Odds lengthen on survival of Sportsman as sales drop." The Independent on Sunday.
  3. ^ Cash, William (22 September 2006) "A big gamble in Mayfair." Evening Standard (London).
  4. ^ Caesar, Ed (24 April 2006) "How to spend." The Independent on Sunday.
  5. ^ Adams, Guy (27 August 2004) "Pandora." The Independent (London).
  6. ^ (17 November 2005) "Voting for Annabel's." Evening Standard (London).
  7. ^ Davis, Simon (17 September 2004) "Secrets of the Ledbury set." Evening Standard (London).
  8. ^ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=405211&in_page_id=1879&in_a_source=
  9. ^ http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_19970727/ai_n14465936
  10. ^ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=405211&in_page_id=1879&in_a_source=
  11. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4544600.stm
  12. ^ http://www.thepeerage.com/p5917.htm
  13. ^ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=393668&in_page_id=1879
  14. ^ http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4153/is_20060119/ai_n16026308
  15. ^ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4153/is_20030722/ai_n12056008

[edit] References

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