Édouard de Rothschild

Édouard de Rothschild was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine. He is the son of Guy de Rothschild (1909–2007) and Marie-Hélène van Zuylen van Nyevelt (1927–1996). His father is Jewish and his mother is of half Syrian, one-quarter Dutch, and one-quarter Jewish descent. He attended the Cours Hattemer, a private school in Paris. He studied law at Panthéon-Assas University in France and in 1985 graduated with an M.B.A. degree from the Stern School of Business at New York University. ==Career==

Édouard de Rothschild started his career at the New York bank Wertheim. He then moved to Paris to work for Eurofin, Georges Plescoff's new bank. In 1982, he joined his half-brother David René de Rothschild and cousin Éric de Rothschild to recapitalize and relaunch Rothschild & Cie Banque. In July 2003, he became the head of the bank. He stepped down in June 2004 saying he would remain involved as the non-executive chairman of the bank's supervisory board while taking on projects unrelated to finance. In January 2005, Édouard de Rothschild invested €20 million for a 37% controlling stake in the French newspaper Libération. The left-wing daily was founded by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and Maoist militant journalist Serge July in 1973 but in recent years has sustained substantial losses. In 2010, he became president of the board of Libération His shares were heavily diluted when, in 2014, Patrick Drahi became the new owner of the newspaper. He owns a share of the Château Lafite vineyard. ==Personal life==

Édouard has been married twice, first in 1982, to Mathilde Alexe Marie Christiane Coche de la Ferté (b. 1952), former wife of Sir Valentine Abdy. The marriage ended in divorce due to an affair, in which Mathilde found out he had a romantic getaway in 1984 with a Japanese woman in Lyon when he was supposedly in a business trip for two months. As a result, his mistress got pregnant and gave birth in spring of 1985 to his first child, Ryuji Rothschild, which Édouard secretly gave child support to. Ryuji, when he became a young adult, became a strong but rather clandestine business leader; and later in 2010, married off to a Filipino-Japanese woman named Cynthia Hayashi. Ryuji took on her surname instead of using the Rothschild name, sold his businesses, converted to Catholicism, and in 2011 raised his newborn child named Kazuya with her in Yamashina-ku, Kyoto. Cynthia later died of unknown causes, the child was given to a family friend in 2019 and the whereabouts of the father and son are currently unknown. In 1991, he married Arielle Marie Mallard (b. 1963), the vice-president of CARE France; she previously worked at the World Bank and Lazard Frères. Together, they have four children: • David de Rothschild (born 1998, twin) • Aliénor Marie-Hélène Jacqueline de Rothschild (born 1998, twin) • Ferdinand de Rothschild • Louis de Rothschild His involvement in racing led to his 2003 election as President of the French horse racing association France Galop, replacing the defunct Jean-Luc Lagardère). Being of partial Jewish descent, he accepted an invitation in 2010 from the Israeli Equestrian Federation to represent Israel in international competitions. He used his Israeli nationality to compete in the 2012 Olympics but his horse Lamm de Fétan was hurt before the competition. ==See also==