Nathaniel Philip Rothschild

The Honourable Nathaniel Philip Victor James "Nat" Rothschild (born 12 July 1971) is a British-born financier who has settled in Switzerland,^[1] and a scion of the prominent Rothschild family. He is the chairman of JNR Limited, an investment advisory business primarily focused on emerging markets and the metals, mining and resources sector. He was co-chairman of Bumi plc, a natural resources group, that he helped create and that is listed on London Stock Exchange. He was co-chairman of the hedge fund Atticus Capital from 1996 until its dissolution in 2009. He has a wide range of international business interests.

Early life and education

Nathaniel Philip Rothschild is the youngest of four children and only son of Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild and Serena Mary Dunn. His mother was from a Christian background while his father was raised Jewish (Rothschild's paternal grandfather was born into a Jewish family, while Rothschild's paternal grandmother had converted to Judaism upon marriage).^[2] His maternal grandparents were Lady Mary Sybil St. Clair-Erskine, daughter of James St Clair-Erskine, 5th Earl of Rosslyn and Sir Philip Gordon Dunn, 2nd Baronet, whose father was the Canadian financier and tycoon, Sir James Dunn.

He was educated at Colet Court (in the same year as Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne), Eton College and Wadham College, Oxford where he read history, gaining a 2:1. Rothschild was a member of the Bullingdon Club as an undergraduate, at the same time as George Osborne.^[3]

Career

Rothschild began his career in 1994 at Lazard Brothers Asset Management in London, before joining Gleacher Partners, the New York-based mergers and acquisitions (M&A) advisory firm founded by Eric Gleacher, former head of M&A at Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers.

Rothschild was the co-chairman (as well as a 50% owner) of Atticus Capital, an international investment management firm established in 1995, that had offices in New York and London. There he was instrumental in developing the business, using his contacts to raise money and employ staff. After the dissolution of Atticus Capital in 2009, Rothschild became co-chairman of the hedge fund Attara Capital LP, the successor investment manager to the Atticus European Fund, which was previously managed by Atticus Capital. He retired from Attara in December 2011.

Rothschild is the former chairman of Vivarte, a pan-European retailer and owner of the Kookai clothing brand. Appointed in 2000 following NR Atticus's acquisition of a 32.9% stake, in what was widely regarded as the first hostile proxy fight in France, he led the group though its successful restructuring and subsequent sale to PAI Partners, a French private equity firm in 2004.^[4]

He became an alternate director of RIT Capital Partners plc in March 2000, and a full non-executive director in 2004 until 2010 when he stepped down from the RIT board to focus on his other activities. He remains a substantial direct shareholder of RIT and a 35% beneficial shareholder of Five Arrows Limited, a Rothschild holding company whose major asset is shares in RIT.

Since 2010, Rothschild has been a non-executive director of Barrick Gold Corporation. He also served as the chairman of the International Advisory Board of United Company Rusal plc, the world's largest aluminum producer, from its formation in 2007 until December 2011.

Nat Rothschild is a member of the Belfer Center's International Council at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and the International Advisory Council of the Brookings Institution. He is also a member of the International Advisory Board of the Barrick Gold Corporation.

Investments

In 2000, The Observer wrote that, in addition to Rothschild's then declared inheritance of £500million, his actual inheritance "hidden in a series of trusts in Switzerland is rumoured to be worth £40bn".^[5] Via NR Investments Ltd., his principal investment company, Nathaniel Rothschild was a cornerstone investor in the United Company Rusal initial public offering in January 2010. At the same time Rothschild bought $40million of Glencore bonds convertible into shares upon an IPO.

Also Rothschild's NR Investments Ltd. is the largest shareholder (26.5% End December 2009) of Volex, a Manchester-based electrical cable maker. Furthermore Nathaniel Rothschild owns an 11% share in BR Properties, a Brazilian property company, and has an interest in various property developments in eastern Europe (Montenegro, Romania and Ukraine).

In July 2010 Vallar Plc, a Jersey-incorporated investment vehicle founded by Nathaniel Rothschild, raised £707.2 million ($1.07 billion) in an Initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange. Vallar is led by Rothschild and James Campbell, a former Anglo American PLC coal and base metals chief. Together with other members of the Vallar management team, they have invested £100million in shares of the company. Vallar will focus on investments in mining of metals, coal, and iron ore in the Americas, Russia, eastern Europe, and Australia.^[6]

In November 2010, Vallar announced it was buying stakes for $3bn in two listed Indonesia thermal coal (used for power stations) producers for a combination of cash and new Vallar shares, with a view to combining them to create the largest exporter of thermal coal to China, India, and the other emerging economies of Asia. The transaction closed as planned on 8 April 2011.^[7]

In 2011, Vallar plc was renamed Bumi plc.^[8]

In June 2011, Rothschild and Tony Hayward, the former chief executive of BP plc, listed a successor vehicle to Vallar called Vallares (LSE:VLRS) in London Stock Exchange, raising $2.2 billion. Essentially, this was identical in every respect to the first vehicle, which was metals and mining focused, except that the new entity would try to acquire oil & gas assets.^[9]

In September, Vallares announced a 50/50 all stock merger with Turkish Energy Champion Genel Energy, valued at $4.2billion.^[10]

In 2011, The Sunday Times estimated his personal fortune to be $1.6billion.^[11]

Personal life

He was once briefly married to socialite and model Annabelle Neilson but they divorced in 1997.^[12] He has since been linked to Natalie Portman, Petra Nemcova, and Princess Florence von Preussen (born 1983), a great granddaughter of the last German Emperor, Wilhelm II, and a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. He has regularly been referred to as one of the most eligible bachelors in New York and London.

Rothschild lived for a time in New York before settling in Switzerland in 2000, and according to the Swiss business magazine Bilanz he is a resident of Klosters in Graubünden.

The racehorse Nathaniel, winner of the 2011 King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes, was bred and owned by Rothschild's mother and is named after him.

Controversies

In October 2008, he was the subject of much press speculation when it was revealed that Labour politician Peter Mandelson and the Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska had met when staying on a yacht moored near Corfu, in order to attend a party held by Rothschild.^[13] After speculation that this might constitute a conflict of interest for Mandelson, Rothschild wrote a letter to The Times alleging that another guest was Conservative Shadow-Chancellor George Osborne, who, Rothschild claimed, illicitly tried to solicit a donation from the Russian for his party.^[14]

Further controversy emerged in the summer of 2009, when it was revealed that Mandelson (recently appointed First Secretary of State) would be returning to Corfu to stay in a villa owned by Rothschild, despite in effect acting as Prime Minister during Gordon Brown's holiday absence.^[15]

Rothschild has been linked to the son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi.^[16] In 2009, Saif threw his 37th birthday party at the Splendid Hotel in Bečići Montenegro where the guests were rumored to include Arcelor Mittal CEO Lakshmi Mittal, gold magnate Peter Munk, as well as Oleg Deripaska and Nathaniel Rothschild.^[17][18]

In February 2012 he lost his libel case with the Daily Mail who had accused him of being a "puppet master" in reporting about his foreign trips with Peter Mandelson.^[19]

References

External links

• BUMI plc - Natural resources group partly owned by Nathaniel Rothschild

• Profile of Nat. Rothschild on web site of Bumi plc

• Genel Energy - Oil company partly owned by Nathaniel Rothschild

Articles

• "The Man Who May Become the Richest Rothschild", The New York Times, 9 March 2007
• "Atticus Capital to close two hedge funds", The Sunday Times, 11 August 2009
• "Man in the News: Nathaniel Rothschild", Financial Times, 19 November 2010
• "King Nat’s mines", Financial Times, 14 January 2011
• "From Klosters to Kurdistan", Wall Street Journal, 12 September 2011 (It's not free article)