Edmond de Rothschild is a private bank headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It is exclusively dedicated to wealth management for private and institutional clients. Originally founded in 1923, it was acquired by Edmond Adolphe de Rothschild in the mid-1960s. After his death in 1997, his son Benjamin de Rothschild took over the management. Benjamin is married to Ariane de Rothschild, who has recently become the CEO of the Edmond de Rothschild group. They have four daughters.
The cousin of Benjamin, David de Rothschild also controls a successful but smaller financial organization which specializes in mergers and acquisitions. Currently David and Benjamin are embroiled in a legal battle over the use of the Rothschild name without initials. Ariane insists that David de Rothschild broke centuries of oral tradition by adopting the Rothschild & Co. name without initials.
Another area where the Rothschilds are headed towards breaking tradition is succession. The Rothschilds traditionally stick to male primogeniture and David de Rothschild’s son Alexandre is seen as his likely successor. However Ariane, who has come to wield great, and controversial, authority within the family, believes this tradition should be reformed.
Source: Financial Times, March 5-6, 2016
