From serial partygoer to international powerbroker: The financier Nathaniel Rothschild

Guardian October 22 2008

Nathaniel Rothschild's rise to wealth and influence is the story of a transformation from prodigal son to international powerbroker.

As a young man, the fifth Baron Rothschild-in-waiting was famed more for his partying on the London social circuit and his drinking with the raucous Bullingdon dining and drinking club at Oxford University than for any business acumen which might burnish the reputation of his family's 200-year-old banking dynasty.

In 1995, at about the time he was a 25-year-old apprentice investment analyst with the investment firm Gleacher & Company, he behaved more like a society playboy and eloped to Las Vegas to marry the model Annabelle Neilson, whom he had met on a beach in India.

The marriage soon broke up and he remained a regular face on the party scenes of London, Paris and New York. To some it was evidence that he was unwilling to take on the burden conferred by his family's reputation. Two of his cousins had died early. Amschel Rothschild was found hanged in a hotel bathroom at the age of 41 and Raphael de Rothschild died from a heroin overdose on a Manhattan pavement when he was 23.

Little more than 10 years later his fortunes have been transformed and Rothschild now looks set to become one of the most succesful members of the family. He has a partnership in Atticus Capital, a $14bn New York-based hedge fund, a web of private equity investments in Ukraine and eastern Europe and homes in Corfu, Paris, Moscow and London as well as his principal home in Klosters, Switzerland. He is also on the international advisory panel of the influential Brookings Institution and was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2005.

"This is the story of Prince Hal turning into Henry V," Charles Phillips, who supervised Rothschild in 1995 when he was at Gleacher, has said. "He is one of the few sons of great men who has enhanced the family stature and created his own wealth."

Now 37, Rothschild is an adviser to Oleg Deripaska and like his ancestors he has thrived by providing discreet business advice, jetting in on his Gulfstream jet and serving guests the best wines from his family's Bordeaux vinyards. Roman Abramovich is said to be among his close contacts.

Rothschild is the youngest son of Jacob Rothschild, the fourth baron, who split from the family bank in 1980 to start his own career as an investment banker. He sent Nathaniel to school at Eton and he won a place to study Modern History at Wadham College, Oxford, where he graduated with an MA. He was a contemporary of George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, and the pair were photographed together looking stony-faced and haughty in the Bullingdon Club's traditional dining garb of tailcoat, golden waistcoat and bow tie. Rothschild has cultivated a reputation as a private individual and in photographs he often looks serious, but he is a key part of the international social scene. Princess Beatrice recently took a boyfriend on holiday on Rothschild's yacht in the Bahamas and he has a reputation for dating models and actresses.

Rothschild's wealth, which together with his 71-year-old father was put at £1.4bn in the 2008 Sunday Times Rich List, is largely derived from their stake in the London-based investment trust RIT and his stake in Atticus, which alone has been estimated at £350m.