Edmond de Rothschild Group was in hassle. It was the top of 2015 and, after months of turmoil, the Swiss non-public financial institution owned by a department of the Rothschild dynasty was closing in on a multimillion-dollar settlement with the US Division of Justice for its half in serving to wealthy People cover their belongings.
Behind the scenes, the group’s French chief, Ariane de Rothschild, had tasked Jeffrey Epstein and the lawyer he had launched her to, Kathy Ruemmler, with closing the deal.
“45 mio [million]?” de Rothschild requested Epstein in a December 2015 e-mail trade. He replied that, counting a $10mn payment for the legal professionals concerned and $25mn for him, “I believe you will see that that . . . all lower than 80 fairly good”. “Deep thks to your wonderful assist,” de Rothschild answered.
Days later, the US DoJ introduced a $45mn settlement with Edmond de Rothschild.
Epstein’s pivotal — and profitable — position within the DoJ deal is only one instance of the deep ties he cultivated with the Baroness, who had married into the Rothschild household however now ran a monetary group which as of 2024 had SFr184bn in belongings between its non-public banking and asset administration arms.
Over the six years of their relationship from 2013 till shortly earlier than his arrest in 2019, Epstein turned a private confidant in addition to a key enterprise adviser, giving him a privileged place of affect on the coronary heart of certainly one of Europe’s strongest banking households.
“I do know Baroness Ariane de Rothschild is VERY vital,” Epstein’s assistant Lesley Groff wrote in 2014.
In Geneva, Edmond de Rothschild occupies a particular place — neither a common financial institution like UBS nor a pure boutique, however a storied non-public banking home with deep roots within the metropolis’s wealth-management ecosystem.
In the beginning of 2015, when Benjamin de Rothschild handed operational management of his father’s financial institution to his spouse, it was, nonetheless, in disaster.
Ariane de Rothschild later advised the FT that “it wasn’t my goal to be chief govt of Edmond de Rothschild”, insisting that she solely agreed to step into the position to indicate the household’s dedication as shareholders amid the DoJ probe and a wider restructuring.
However she had mentioned the transfer with Epstein prematurely. “Had an extended discuss with him [Benjamin]. He accepts: leaving all of the subsidiaries’ boards and keep on Holding, Gva, paris, me as interim Ceo with a strategic committee,” de Rothschild wrote in December 2014, weeks earlier than the announcement.
“Good,” Epstein replied. “Subsequent dialogue property plan.”
Benjamin de Rothschild remained chair of the group till his loss of life from a coronary heart assault in 2021 on the age of 57. However from the time of her appointment as president of the manager committee in January 2015, it was clear that Ariane was in cost.
After securing the DoJ settlement, within the months that adopted de Rothschild led efforts to restructure the financial institution’s operations, moved to cement her energy internally and launched a lawsuit towards her husband’s cousin David de Rothschild over who may use the household title — all with Epstein advising within the background.
In 2023, de Rothschild characterised her relationship with Epstein to the Wall Avenue Journal as one during which she had solicited his recommendation on “a few events”. The lots of of emails and different messages between the pair now made public by the DoJ paint a special image, during which the French banker shared non-public confidences with Epstein.
“I’m freaking out and scared I gained’t be as much as the job,” De Rothschild wrote in February 2015, shortly after taking up management of the financial institution. “You by no means have to cover from me, i can pay attention, and advise or simply pay attention, there may be nothign [sic] you may inform me that shocks me,” he stated in one other message in Could that 12 months in response to a remark in regards to the difficulties in her marriage.
There have been items, visits and dinners. They swapped life-style suggestions, contacts for her daughter’s college admission, vacation concepts and snippets of their day by day lives, from the mundane — de Rothschild had a “material man” for Epstein’s upholstery initiatives and gardeners to ship his approach — to the eccentric. “Have you learnt anyone in Cuba that may assist me purchase tobacco land?” de Rothschild requested Epstein in 2015.
She even forwarded non-public emails from the patriarch of the London wing of the household, Lord Jacob Rothschild, within the midst of the delicate dispute over who may use the household title for his or her banking enterprise; messages signed “Love Jacob”. (Edmond de Rothschild is separate from the London and Paris Rothschild & Co. It might take three years earlier than they agreed every group had to make use of their full title.)
De Rothschild and Epstein additionally mentioned issues about Benjamin de Rothschild. In a number of emails to Ariane de Rothschild, Epstein advised that non-public investigators had been digging into her husband’s alleged substance abuse points. He pushed her to additional sever company ties.
“i feel it’s best to put together a custodian movement towards benjamin, and provides him the selection of you submitting the movement or he resigning,” Epstein wrote in April 2015. “he’s uncontrolled and a hazard to you and household.” Benjamin de Rothschild remained in place.
Ariane de Rothschild met Epstein as “a part of her regular features” on the financial institution, Edmond de Rothschild Group advised the FT. “Ariane de Rothschild was the one one at the moment to grasp the magnitude of the difficulty within the DoJ matter,” it added, and Epstein was “compensated for offering strategic consulting and assist within the financial institution’s total enterprise improvement”.
“Particularly, [he] supplied strategic recommendation on managing the dispute decision course of” with the DoJ, Edmond de Rothschild stated. De Rothschild had no data of Epstein’s private conduct or the allegations towards him, her representatives stated. “She unequivocally condemns these behaviours and the crimes he dedicated. She clearly deeply regrets not having identified all of this,” they stated.
Epstein would assist information de Rothschild by way of an additional interval of tumult for the non-public financial institution, which included a reshuffle of its management, a police raid and €9mn high-quality from Luxembourg regulators for cash laundering failures in relation to the Malaysian 1MDB scandal. “Shit is hitting the fan,” she wrote to him in 2016.
Epstein had his personal concepts about methods to reshape the Swiss household group. He inspired a 2015 method from UBS, orchestrated early-stage conversations with Rockefeller & Co in 2016 and Julius Baer in 2017, and had ideas for senior hires. (Julius Baer stated the talks brokered by Epstein had been preliminary, the matter was by no means pursued intimately and was quickly dropped.)
He pitched her the concept of recruiting Jes Staley, then the chief govt of Barclays and one other frequent correspondent of Epstein, to the Swiss financial institution. In an earlier 2015 trade, Epstein pushed de Rothschild to rent Ruemmler, who was then a companion at Latham & Watkins and had beforehand been a White Home counsel underneath the Obama administration, completely. Neither Staley nor Ruemmler joined Edmond de Rothschild. Ruemmler is now common counsel at Goldman Sachs; she declined to remark for this text.
“It kills me to see you spending your wonderful abilities as a part of the working class. I’m delicate to the household obligations. However you want HELP . . . again and again, I hear that the financial institution and its repute, highly effective, is you however as a one man band,” he wrote in 2017.
“I do know you’re completely proper and I do know I’ve to discover a approach out of this upwards. Additionally approach too fragile to have me solely,” she stated.
Epstein additionally pointed de Rothschild in the direction of one other promising American contact in his Rolodex: Apollo World Administration, the non-public fairness agency whose co-founder Leon Black counted Epstein as a trusted consigliere.
In January 2016, Epstein organized a company conclave between the 2 events at his Manhattan townhouse. (De Rothschild’s representatives stated the conferences had been a part of “regular enterprise”, and fell underneath the rubric of Epstein’s varied strategic consulting and enterprise improvement missions for the group. Apollo has acknowledged {that a} assembly befell however stated that Epstein didn’t attend and that it had by no means executed any enterprise with him.)
Epstein noticed the worth the 2 events may deliver to 1 one other: Apollo with its intensive suite of personal funding funds, Edmond de Rothschild with a distribution community of rich European shoppers craving for a slice of higher-yielding American investments.
However he additionally appeared to pitch a grander scheme: a company tax “inversion” at Apollo involving Edmond de Rothschild. Whether or not Edmond de Rothschild was a possible merger goal or merely an adviser just isn’t clear from the communications, however the fabled tax inversion proved elusive — as did any broader co-operation between Apollo and Edmond de Rothschild.
“[Ariane] de Rothschild is totally dedicated to the distinctive and unbiased household mannequin of the Edmond de Rothschild financial institution,” the corporate stated.
Epstein’s personal issues often surfaced within the messages. However largely the exchanges painting a involved adviser providing distinctive options — and luxury — to an govt in want of a trusted confidant amongst a circle of unreliable associates.
At one level in 2015, Epstein consulted the lawyer to whom he had launched her, Kathy Ruemmler, about methods to present de Rothschild with ethical assist with out showing paternalistic. Ruemmler counselled: “Simply be her buddy. You’re good at that.”
In one other trade that 12 months, de Rothschild mused to Epstein on friendship. “I’ve had my share of disappointments too with mates who turned out to be shits,” she wrote to Epstein in 2015. “by no means thoughts.”
Extra reporting by Harriet Agnew, Ortenca Aliaj and Mercedes Ruehl
