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Sir Evelyn de Rothschild exited his family’s eponymous business in 2004 due to a sexual misconduct complaint made by an employee, the firm told staff at Rothschild & Co.
Employees were informed on Wednesday that Evelyn de Rothschild, one of the most prominent members of the 256-year-old dynasty, left the bank after an investigation into a sexual misconduct complaint made in late 2003. At the time, his departure was presented as retirement. The dynast died in 2022 aged 91.
The note was sent to employees after the Guardian reported earlier this week that several women had come forward alleging that Evelyn de Rothschild had abused them with incidents going back to the late 1990s.
“We are naturally appalled by any allegation of conduct that is so at odds with the culture we strive to foster within the group, even if it was several decades ago,” the memo said. “No colleague should be subjected to inappropriate sexual behaviour.”
The memo said that after the Guardian contacted Rothschild & Co “requesting information on some unspecific claims from the 1990s”, the bank made “extensive enquiries” and “conducted a thorough search of our internal records and found nothing that would support the allegations from this period”.
It said that it discovered “a single complaint of sexual misconduct in late 2003. This case was investigated immediately, dealt with appropriately, with full support for the colleague concerned,” and led to the financier leaving the group in March 2004.
Rothschild & Co said they found no other record of any other complaint relating to the banker, who acted as a financial adviser to Queen Elizabeth II and in 1989 was knighted for services to banking and finance.
A spokesperson for Rothschild & Co said: “We do not tolerate and will never tolerate behaviour of this nature at the company.”
The roots of the current structure of Rothschild & Co date to a 2003 merger between the then-separate French bank and UK merchant bank NM Rothschild & Sons, just before Evelyn de Rothschild left the family bank.
The deal, which was orchestrated by the then-chair David de Rothschild, unified its corporate structure under the French parent group and put an end to decades of cross-Channel rivalry. David de Rothschild handed the reins to his son Alexandre in 2018. Two years ago, the Rothschild family announced plans to take Rothschild & Co private and that year it delisted from the Paris stock exchange.
Evelyn de Rothschild had devoted himself to the family bank since his father retired as chair of NM Rothschild in 1961. He fell out with his younger cousin, Jacob, during the 1970s over the latter’s desire to enlarge NM Rothschild by pursuing ambitious deals. Evelyn, the major shareholder, triumphed and Jacob left in 1980, barely on speaking terms with his cousin, to run his own investment business.
https://www.ft.com/content/6f8883f3-e298-4a89-9e62-30f838fb97f1
