Nathaniel Philip Rothschild - Biography

Nathaniel Philip Victor James Rothschild (born 12 July 1971), also known as Nat, is a British-born financier who has settled in Switzerland, and a scion of the prominent Rothschild family. He is the Chairman of "JNR Limited", an investment advisory business primarily focused on emerging markets and the metals, mining and resources sector. He is Co-Chairman of "Bumi plc", a natural resources group listed on London Stock Exchange. He was Co-Chairman of the hedge fund Atticus Capital from 1996 until its dissolution in 2009. He has a wide range of international business interests.

Early life

Nathaniel Philip Rothschild is the youngest of four children and only son of Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild and Serena Mary Dunn, the daughter of Lady Mary Sybil St. Clair-Erskine and Sir Philip Gordon Dunn, whose father was the Canadian financier and tycoon, Sir James Dunn. As the son of a baron, Nathaniel is entitled to be styled "The Honourable". He was educated at Colet Court (in the same year as George Osborne), Eton College and Wadham College, Oxford where he read history, gaining a 2:1. Rothschild was a member of the Bullingdon Club as an undergraduate, at the same time as George Osborne, now Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Career

Rothschild began his career in 1994 at Lazard Brothers Asset Management in London, before joining Gleacher Partners, the New York-based mergers and acquisitions (M&A) advisory firm founded by Eric Gleacher, former head of M&A at Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers.

Rothschild was the co-chairman (as well as a 50% owner) of Atticus Capital, an international investment management firm established in 1995, that had offices in New York and London. There he was instrumental in developing the business, using his extensive contacts to raise money and hire talent. After the dissolution of Atticus Capital in 2009, Rothschild became co-chairman of the hedge fund Attara Capital LP, the successor investment manager to the Atticus European Fund, which was previously managed by Atticus Capital.

Rothschild is the former Chairman of "Vivarte", a pan-European retailer and owner of the Kookai clothing brand. Appointed in 2000 following NR Atticus's acquisition of a 32.9% stake, in what was widely regarded as the first hostile proxy fight in France, he led the group though its successful restructuring and subsequent sale to PAI Partners, a French private equity firm in 2004.

He became an alternate director of RIT Capital Partners plc in March 2000, and a full non-executive director in 2004 until 2010 when he stepped down from the RIT board to focus on his other activities. He remains a substantial direct shareholder of RIT and a 35% beneficial shareholder of Five Arrows Limited, a Rothschild holding company whose major asset is shares in RIT.

Since 2010, Rothschild has been a Non-executive director of Barrick Gold Corporation. He also serves as the Chairman of the International Advisory Board of United Company Rusal plc, the world's largest aluminum producer.

Nathaniel Rothschild is a member of the Belfer Center's International Council at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and the International Advisory Council of the Brookings Institution. He is also a member of the International Advisory Board of the Barrick Gold Corporation. He was nominated as a "Young Global Leader" by the World Economic Forum in 2005.

Investments

In 2000, The Observer wrote that, in addition to Nathaniel's then declared inheritance of £500 million, his actual inheritance "hidden in a series of trusts in Switzerland is rumoured to be worth £40bn". Via NR Investments Ltd., his principal investment company, Nathaniel Rothschild was a cornerstone investor in the United Company Rusal initial public offering in January 2010. At the same time Rothschild bought $40 million of Glencore bonds convertible into shares upon an IPO.

Also Rothschilds NR Investments Ltd. is the largest shareholder (26,5% End December 2009) of Volex, a Manchester-based electrical cable maker. Furthermore Nathaniel Rothschild owns a 11% share in BR Properties, a Brazilian property company, and has an interest in various property developments in Eastern Europe (Montenegro, Romania and Ukraine).

In July 2010 Vallar Plc, a Jersey-incorporated investment vehicle founded by Nathaniel Rothschild, raised £707.2 million ($1.07 billion) in an Initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange. Vallar is led by Rothschild and James Campbell, a former Anglo American PLC coal and base metals chief. Together with other members of the Vallar management team, they have invested £100 million in shares of the company. Vallar will focus on investments in mining of metals, coal, and iron ore in the Americas, Russia, Eastern Europe, and Australia.

In November 2010, Vallar announced it was buying stakes for $3bn in two listed Indonesia thermal coal (used for power stations) producers for a combination of cash and new Vallar shares, with a view to combining them to create the largest exporter of thermal coal to China, India, and the other emerging economies of Asia. The transaction closed as planned on April 8, 2011.

In 2011, Valler plc was renamed "BUMI plc".

In June 2011, Rothschild and Tony Hayward, the former chief executive of BP plc, listed a successor vehicle to Vallar called Vallares (LSE:VLRS) in London Stock Exchange, raising $2,2 billion. Essentially, this was identical in every respect to the first vehicle, which was metals and mining focused, except that the new entity would try to acquire oil & gas assets.

In September, Vallares announced a 50/50 all stock merger with Turkish Energy Champion Genel Energy, valued at $4,2billion.

In 2011, The Sunday Times estimated his personal fortune to be $1.6 billion.

Personal life

He was once briefly married to socialite Annabelle Neilson but they divorced in 1997. He has since been linked to Natalie Portman, Petra Nemcova and most recently Princess Florence von Preussen (born 1983), a great granddaughter of the last Kaiser and a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. Rothschild lived for a time in New York before settling in Switzerland in 2000, and according to the Swiss business magazine Bilanz he is a resident of Klosters in Graubünden. Despite this, he has regularly been referred to as one of the most eligible bachelors in New York and London.

Controversies

In October 2008, he was the subject of much press speculation; it was revealed that Labour politician Peter Mandelson and the Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska had met when staying on a yacht moored near Corfu, in order to attend a party held by Rothschild. After speculation that this might constitute a conflict of interest for Mandelson, Rothschild wrote a letter to The Times, alleging that another guest was Conservative Shadow-Chancellor George Osborne, who, Rothschild claimed, illicitly tried to solicit a donation from the Russian for his party.

Further controversy emerged in the summer of 2009, when it was revealed that Mandelson (recently appointed First Secretary of State) would be returning to Corfu to stay in a villa owned by Rothschild, despite in effect acting as Prime Minister during Gordon Brown's holiday absence.

Rothschild has been linked to the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. In 2009, Saif threw his 37th birthday party at the Splendid Hotel in Bečići Montenegro where the guests were rumored to include Arcelor Mittal CEO Lakshmi Mittal, gold magnate Peter Munk, as well as Oleg Deripaska and Nathaniel Rothschild.

External links

• BUMI plc - Natural resources group partly owned by Nathaniel Rothschild

• Profile of Nat. Rothschild on web site of Bumi plc

• Genel Energy - Oil company partly owned by Nathaniel Rothschild

Atricles

• "The Man Who May Become the Richest Rothschild", The New York Times, March 9 2007
• "Atticus Capital to close two hedge funds", The Sunday Times, August 11 2009
• "Man in the News: Nathaniel Rothschild", Financial Times, November 19 2010
• "King Nat’s mines", Financial Times, January 14 2011
• "From Klosters to Kurdistan", Wall Street Journal, September 12 2011 (It's not free article)