- Guy de Rothschild
Infobox_Person
name = Guy de Rothschild
imagesize =
caption =
birth_date = birth date|1909|5|21
birth_place =Paris ,France
death_date = death date and age|2007|6|12|1909|5|21|mf=y
death_place = Paris, France
resting_place =
residence =Château de Ferrières Hôtel Lambert
education =Lycée Condorcet Lycée Louis-le-Grand
occupation = Financier, Philanthropist, Racehorse owner/breeder
party =
spouse = 1) Alix Hermine Jeanette Schey de Koromla
2) Marie-Hélène van Zuylen van Nyevelt
children =David René de Rothschild Édouard de Rothschild
parents = Édouard A. J. de Rothschild &
Germaine Alice Halphen
religion =Baron Guy Édouard Alphonse Paul de Rothschild (
May 21 ,1909 –June 12 ,2007 ) was a French banker and member of theRothschild family . He chaired the bank Rothschild Frères from 1967 to 1979, when it was nationalized by the French government, and maintained possessions in other French and foreign companies includingImerys .Family
Baron Guy de Rothschild was born in Paris, the son of Baron Édouard de Rothschild (1868–1949) and his wife, the former Germaine Alice Halphen (1884–1975). His elder brother, Édouard Alphonse Émile Lionel (1906-11), died young after an appendectomy; he also had two younger sisters, Jacqueline and Bethsabée. Half of his great-grandparents were Rothschilds. He was a great-great grandson of German
Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1743-1812), who founded the family's banking in the 18th century. He grew up at his parents' townhouse on the corner of therue de Rivoli and thePlace de la Concorde in Paris (a property once occupied byTalleyrand and now the United States Embassy) and their country estate atChâteau de Ferrières , 25 miles north-east of Paris, a massive house built to a design byJoseph Paxton in the 1850s, based on Paxton's earlier design ofMentmore Towers forBaron Mayer de Rothschild of the English branch of the Rothschild family.He was educated at the
Lycée Condorcet andLycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, and by private tutors. He undertook military service with the cavalry atSaumur , and playedgolf for France. He won theGrand Prix de Sud-Ouest in 1948.Rothschild married twice. In 1937, he married a distant cousin, Baroness Alix Hermine Jeanette Schey de Koromla (1911–1982), the former wife of Kurt Krahmer and younger daughter of the Hungarian-Jewish Baron Philip Schey von Koromla by his first wife, and the couple had a son,
David René de Rothschild . By his first wife, Rothschild also had two stepddaughters, Lili and Bettina Kahmer. They divorced in 1956.He married a second time in 1957, to Baroness Marie-Hélène van Zuylen van Nyevelt (1927–1996), whose marriage to Count François de Nicolay had also been dissolved in 1956. Like his first wife, she was a distant cousin, though in this case, a Roman Catholic. They had one child, Baron
Édouard de Rothschild .After his second marriage, Guy de Rothschild renovated the Château de Ferrières, using it to put on lavish balls in the early 1970s, before donating it to the
University of Paris in 1975. The same year, he bought theHôtel Lambert on theÎle Saint-Louis in Paris, the top floors of which became his Paris residence.ervice in World War II
In 1940, as a result of the
German occupation of France in World War II , Guy de Rothschild's parents and sister Bethsabée fled France and made their way to safety inNew York City . Guy de Rothschild had enlisted in theFrench Army and was a company commander in the 3rd Light Mechanised Division during theBattle of France in early 1940. After fighting the Nazis atCarvin , he was part of the French Army that was forced to retreat toDunkirk . He was awarded theCroix de Guerre for his actions on the beaches at Dunkirk, from where he was evacuated to England. He immediately returned to France, landing at Brest, and taking charge of the family's office atLa Bourboule , nearClermont-Ferrand .Under the
Vichy government, his father and uncles were stripped of their French nationality, removed from the register of theLégion d'honneur , and the family was forced to sell its possessions. Rothschild managed to persuade the buyers to grant options under which he would later be able to buy the family's interests back. He left France again, via Spain and Portugal, to join his parents inNew York City . He joined theFree 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 waters of theAtlantic Ocean . In England, he joined the staff of General Koenig atSupreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force near Portsmouth.Banking and business
Guy de Rothschild studied law at university then joined
de Rothschild Frères in 1931 when it was being run by his father and a cousin,Robert Philippe de Rothschild , who died in 1946. As part of his learning to manage the the family's businesses, in 1933 he joined the executive board of their Northern Railway Company.At the end of War War II, Guy de Rothschild returned to the bank's offices at
rue Laffitte in Paris in 1944. On his father's passing in 1949, Guy de Rothschild took formal control of the business. Years later, Rothschild was on the cover of the December 20, 1963 issue of TIME magazine in a story that said he took "over the family's French bank during the disorder of war and defeat, changed its character from stewardship of the family fortune to expansive modern banking."Following in the footsteps of his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, Guy de Rothschild served as a director of the
Banque de France . On his father's death, he also inherited part ofChâteau Lafite-Rothschild but did not run it.Georges Pompidou , who would later become President andPrime Minister of France , was recruited by Guy de Rothschild 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. Guy was its president from 1968 to 1978. In 1968 Guy de Rothschild became a partner atN M Rothschild & Sons ,London , while cousin Sir Evelyn de Rothschild was appointed a director of Banque Rothschild, Paris.Imetal S.A.
In France, Rothschild developed the country's largest private uranium mining company, the Compagnie Française des Minerais d'Uranium.In 1961, Guy de Rothschild took over as Chairman of
Imetal S.A. in which the family had a substantial stake. His involvement marked the first time any Rothschild had personally participated in the management of the business. Among its holdings, the international mining conglomerate ownedSociété Le Nickel (SLN) inNew Caledonia . In 1969, SLN acquired Peñarroya, aChile an based company which mined and processedlead ,zinc andcopper . Two years later SLN took over La Compagnie de Mokta, which specialized iniron ,manganese ,sand ,gravel anduranium . Rothschild restructured the family's various mining interests, including Peñarroya which became part of SLN.Nationalization
In the early 1970s the government of France began nationalizing a number of industries and after declaring nickel to be a vital market commodity, SLN's assets were nationalized in 1974 and placed under a new company, Société Metallurgique. The result left the Rothschild's SLN as a holding company with a fifty percent interest in Société Metallurgique.
When the Rothschild's bank was nationalized in 1981 by the socialist government of
François Mitterrand , a discouraged Guy de Rothschild left France and moved temporarily to New York City. Following another change in government policy, in 1987 a new banking business was established by his son David who foundedRothschild & Cie Banque .Thoroughbred horse racing
Guy de Rothschild was a renowned breeder of
Thoroughbred s as the family ownsHaras de Meautry inNormandy . He inheritedChâteau de Reux in thehorse breeding area inLower Normandy about 125 miles north of Paris. He produced prominentrace horse s, the most famous perhaps Exbury, which won thePrix Boïard , thePrix Ganay , theCoronation Cup , theGrand Prix de Saint-Cloud , andPrix de l'Arc de Triomphe in 1963.In 1950, he won the
Grand Prix de Paris withVieux Manoir , theGrand Prix de Saint-Cloud with Ocarina, and theGrand Prix de Deauville with Alizier. As owner, he also won among others, thePrix de Diane three times (1957, 1960, 1961), thePrix Royal-Oak twice, and thePrix Morny twice. Guy de Rothschild chaired the association of racehorse breeders in France of 1975 to 1982.Art collector
The French Rothschild family had long been collectors of art beginning with
James Mayer de Rothschild made the first significant acquisitions. Notable in his collection, Guy de Rothschild inherited Jan Vermeer's "The Astronomer". In 1940 theNazi s confiscated it from his father and sent it to Germany. In 1945 the painting was returned to the Rothschild family and acquired by theLouvre in 1983.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 theUniversity of Paris .Death
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