Ariane de Rothschild on why she wants to shake up private banking
Head of Edmond de Rothschild on the future of wealth and the family feud
Just how many of them are there?
Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour.
https://www.ft.com/content/de2d5486-cbf9-11e8-8d0b-a6539b949662
“It’s very exhilarating!” It has just been suggested that I take a moto-taxi (a motorcycle) to catch my train after our interview — and Ariane de Rothschild is tickled at the thought. “Everybody does it. I said I’ll do it too, but my girls said, ‘Oh no you can’t’,” she says. The girls — Ariane’s four daughters with her husband Benjamin de Rothschild — are clearly a singular influence on the forceful philanthropist turned chief executive. Born in El Salvador and raised in Colombia and Zaire, Ariane Langner married into what is probably the most famous banking dynasty in the world. Since taking over in 2015 as head of Edmond de Rothschild, the private bank and asset manager founded by her father-in-law — her husband is chairman of the board — she has become one of its most prominent figures. We are sitting in her apartment on a sweltering day in Paris, just days after the longstanding feud between Ariane’s wing of the family and that of her cousin by marriage, David de Rothschild, from the Rothschild and Co wing, has been resolved. She refers to the agreement as “settling with David”. At the heart of the legal battle was the idea that neither side should have the right to use just the Rothschild name, lest it cause confusion among would-be clients. Part of that confusion arose from the different natures of the two businesses: while Edmond de Rothschild focuses on private banking and asset management, Rothschild & Co, while growing its own wealth management business, is a mergers and acquisitions specialist.“Even here, a lot of bankers felt uncomfortable with the lack of clarity,” she says. “I don’t think it’s healthy that you receive here a phone call saying ‘Allo, am I contacting Rothschild and you are not honest enough to say: ‘No, it’s not the one you think.’”The settlement was “definitely a relief”, she says. Referring to the fact that the French branch of the Rothschild family is now in its seventh generation, she says: “Generations tend to drag on layers and layers of unsaid things, so this is a very good reboot.”But while the lawsuit she initiated was the most public change Ariane has made, there have been plenty of others behind the scenes: reorganising the bank, promoting women to senior leadership roles and cutting back on overseas expansion to focus on core activities. “When I took over, it was a classic case of businesses that had had very fast growth in a very favourable market, so [it was] an environment where, to a certain extent, people ended up believing the sky was the limit,” she says. “With 2007/08 all of a sudden everybody said: oh maybe the sky’s not the limit but kept hoping it would get back to what they were used to.”
We did a lot of work on values and company culture. On our side there’s a panache. Panache is a way of being — it’s not vulgar
She broke down boundaries between the various parts of the business, which include banking, vineyards, hotels, property, foundations and boat racing. “I don’t believe in silos,” she says. “A banker or winemaker should be at the same level. My father-in-law [Edmond de Rothschild] used to call the wine business ‘les danseuses’ [which she translates as ‘the little capricious toy’] and I thought it was very wrong. These businesses are profitable.”
https://www.ft.com/content/de2d5486-cbf9-11e8-8d0b-a6539b949662