Guy de Rothschild
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Guy de Rothschild | |
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| Occupation(s) | Banker and aristocrat |
Baron Guy Édouard Alphonse Paul de Rothschild (May 21, 1909 – June 12, 2007) was a French banker and member of the Rothschild family. He chaired the de Rothschild Frères bank from 1967 to 1979 and maintained possessions in other French and foreign companies including Imerys.
Family
Guy de Rothschild was born in Paris, the son of the Baron Édouard de Rothschild (1868–1949) and the Baroness Germaine Halphen (1884–1975). Half of his great-grandparents were Rothschilds. He was a great-great grandson of Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1743-1812), who founded the family's banking in the 18th centuty. He grew up at his parents' townhouse on the corner of the rue de Rivoli and the Place de la Concorde in Paris (a property once occupied by Talleyrand) and their country estate at Château de Ferrières, 25 miles north-east of Paris, a massive house built to a design by Joseph Paxton in the 1850s, based on Paxton's earlier design of Mentmore Towers for Baron Mayer de Rothschild of the English branch of the Rothschild family. Guy de Rothschild later gave Château de Ferrières to the University of Paris in 1975.
He was educated at the lycée Condorcet and and lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, and by private tutors. He undertook military service with the cavalry at Saumur, and played golf for France.
He married twice, and has two sons. He married Alix Schey de Koromla (1911–1982) in 1937, having a son, David René de Rothschild. They divorced in 1956. He married a second time in 1957, to Marie-Hélène van Zuylen van Nyevelt (1927–1996), with whom he also had a son, Édouard de Rothschild.
Banking and business
He began working for the family bank in 1931, joining the executive board of the family's Compagnie du Chemin de Fer du Nord in 1933. During World War II, he was a company commander in the 3rd Light Mechanised Division. After fighting the Nazis at Carvin, he retreated to Dunkirk. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre for his actions on the beaches at Dunkirk, from where he was evactuated to England. He immediately returned to France, landing at Brest, and taking charge of the family's office at La Bourbole, near Clermont-Ferrand. Under the Fascist Vichy government, his father and uncles were stripped of their French nationality, removed from the register of the Légion d'honneur, and the family was forced to sell its possessions. Rothschild left France again, via Spain and Portugal, to join his parent in New York. He joined the Free French Forces and boarded the cargo ship, Pacific Grove, to travel back to Europe. His ship was torpedoed and sunk in March 1943, and he was rescued after spending 12 hours in the Atlantic. In England, he joined the staff of General Koenig at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force near Portsmouth.
He returned to the bank's offices at rue Laffitte in Paris in 1944, and reconstructed the Rothschild banking and business empire after the war. George Pompidou who would later become President and Prime Minister of France, was recruited by him from a job as a teacher, and worked for him from 1953 to 1962, during which time he became the general manager of the Rothschild bank. The bank diversified, from investment management under De Rothschild Frères to the deposit-taking Banque de Rothschild, with branches throughout France. When the bank was nationalized in 1981 by the socialist government of Mitterrand, Rothschild left France in anger and moved temporarily to New York. In 1987 the family banking business was restored as Rothschild & Cie Banque by his son David.
Horsebreeding
Guy de Rothschild is a renowned horsebreeder as the family owns Haras de Meautry in Normandy. He has produced prominent race horses, the most famous perhaps Exbury, which won the Prix Boïard, the Prix Ganay, the Coronation Cup, the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud, and Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in 1963.
In 1950, he won the Grand Prix de Paris with Vieux Manoir, the Grand Prix de St Cloud with Ocarina, and the Grand Prix de Deauville with Alizier. As owner, he also won among others, the Prix de Diane three times (1957, 1960, 1961), the Prix Royal-Oak twice, and the Prix Morny twice. Guy de Rothschild chaired the association of racehorse breeders in France of 1975 to 1982.
Philanthropy
In 1950, Guy de Rothschild became the first president of the Fonds Social Juif Unifié (FSJU) (United Jewish Welfare Fund), the major French philanthropic agency for the Jewish community.
In 1975 Rothschild and his wife donated the Château de Ferrières to the University of Paris.
Works
- The Whims of Fortune: The Memoirs of Guy de Rothschild by Guy de Rothschild. Random House (1985) ISBN 0-394-54054-9 / Contre bonne fortune (French) by Guy de Rothschild. Belfond (1983). ISBN 2714415504, ISBN 978-2714415509
- The relationship between business and government in France (Benjamin F. Fairless memorial lectures) by Guy de Rothschild. Carnegie-Mellon University press (1983). ASIN: B0006YDWD2
- Le fantôme de Léa: Roman (French) by Guy de Rothschild. Plon (1998). ISBN 225918863X, ISBN 978-2259188630
- Mon ombre siamoise (French) by Guy de Rothschild. Grasset (1993). ISBN 2246470714, ISBN 978-2246470717