Jacob Rothschild, a wealthy financier, arts patron and philanthropist with close ties to Israel who broke with his family’s legendary banking dynasty at a time of radical change in the world of finance, has died. He was 87.

His death was announced Monday by the Rothschild Foundation, a British charity of which he was chairman. It was not specified when or where he died, nor was the cause of death stated.

Mr Rothschild – formally the fourth Baron Rothschild – was descended from Mayer Amschel Rothschild, a coin dealer in the Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt, who sent four of his five sons to Vienna, London, Naples and Paris to seek their fortunes in the late 20th century . 18th and early 19th centuries.

For most of the 19th century, the House of Rothschild was the world’s largest bank “by a wide margin,” wrote Jonathan Steinberg, an American scholar, in 1999 in The London Review of Books. son who founded the bank’s London branch, “can be compared to that of Bill Gates today,” Mr. Steinberg added.

Most stories about the Rothschilds’ wealth have their origins in a decision to fund the British army during the Napoleonic Wars. But the broader dynasty prospered by strengthening its family ties and cultivating what Mr. Steinberg called “all those who were at the top of European society during this period.”

It was against this historical backdrop that Jacob Rothschild joined the London branch of the family empire at NM Rothschild & Sons bank in 1963. Until then he had followed a route familiar to the British elite, educated at Eton College and Christchurch College, Oxford. .

At the time, the traditionally cautious, cushy world of London finance was still twenty years away from a shift to freewheeling capitalism, culminating in the so-called Big Bang of 1986, which brought deregulation of the London Stock Exchange.

And Britain’s commercial banks in the City, as London’s financial district is known, seemed dwarfed by the burgeoning financial power of Wall Street, building pressure for new approaches.

Mr. Rothschild had long favored merging the London branch of his family’s financial empire with another investment bank, SG Warburg, but the plan was opposed by his cousin Evelyn de Rothschild and his own father, Victor, a scientist and former member of the British MI5. intelligence service.

That’s why he decided to break away. “We must try to make ourselves as much a bank of brains as of money,” Mr. Rothschild said in 1965.

In a sense, he challenged a culture of familial control and secrecy that had characterized family interactions from the very beginning.

As early as 1810, “family policy excluded female descendants and all sons-in-law from any role in the business,” wrote Mr. Steinberg, the scholar. Each of the original partners “renounced his wife’s right to inspect the accounts and vowed that only direct male descendants would inherit shares.”

A marriage outside the Rothschilds’ Jewish faith was frowned upon; marriage within the family was not unknown.

“Of the 21 marriages between 1824 and 1877 involving descendants of Mayer Amschel, no fewer than 15 were between his direct descendants,” Mr. Steinberg wrote.

While the family’s rules had softened by the early 1960s, Mr Rothschild’s proposals for a merger with SG Warburg clashed head-on with tradition. For Victor and Evelyn de Rothschild, “maintaining control over the family took priority over expansion,” wrote British historian Niall Ferguson in his book “The House of Rothschild” (1998), a comprehensive study of the family. The clash represented “a serious rift within the English branch of the family,” Ferguson wrote.

The dispute was not resolved until 1980, when the feuding partners agreed that the family bank, NM Rothschild & Sons Ltd., would operate separately from Mr. Rothschild’s breakaway entity, J. Rothschild & Company, whose principal assets would be known to their initials. : RIT, for Rothschild Investment Trust.

Mr. Rothschild retired as head of RIT Capital Partners in 2019. That year, his personal wealth was estimated at more than $1 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Nathaniel Charles Jacob Rothschild was born on April 29, 1936, in Berkshire, England, the son of Victor Rothschild, the third Baron Rothschild, and his first wife, Barbara Judith (Hutchinson) Rothschild.

Mr Rothschild studied history at Oxford before joining the family bank. After resigning as head of RIT, he became involved in a series of ventures, including a failed 1989 bid with other investors to acquire British American Tobacco for $21 billion.

He maintained a wide network of international connections, acting as deputy chairman of Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB Television and as an adviser to the then Prince Charles. He served on the International Advisory Board of the Blackstone Group, a leading private equity group, and in 1991 co-founded the J. Rothschild Assurance Group, an asset management company now known as St. James’s Place.

Not all his maneuvers were free of controversy. In 2003, British media reports said so entered into a trust agreement with Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, a Russian oil magnate and Putin enemy, to transfer Mr. Khodorkovsky’s stake in the Yukos oil company to Mr. Rothschild in the event of his arrest. Mr Khodorkovsky was arrested in October 2003 and later exiled. Mr. Rothschild did not confirm the reports.

In addition to his career as a powerful financier, Mr. Rothschild played an energetic if sometimes secretive role in Israel, overseeing his family’s long-running philanthropic activities there as head of the organization. Yad Hanadiv Foundation.

For decades, the Rothschilds have quietly sponsored major projects, including the construction of Israel’s parliament, the Supreme Court and the National Library, none of which bear the family’s name. “We’ve tried not to be in the headlines,” Mr. Rothschild said told The Jerusalem Report in 2012, adding: “Our tradition is that we don’t shout from the rooftops what we do.”

He took over Yad Hanadiv after the death in 1988 of Dorothy de Rothschild, the foundation’s chairman and his aunt. She gave him estates in Buckinghamshire, England.

Ownership of any of the properties, Waddesdon country houseBuilt by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild in the 1880s in the style of a French chateau, it had already been transferred to the non-profit National Trust in 1957. But Mr Rothschild struck an unusual deal with the trust to manage the mansion as a home for the Rothschilds’ collection of an estimated 15,000 works of art and objects, and for his personal collection of Rothschild wines, mainly from the Bordeaux region of France.

Mr Rothschild was a major benefactor of the mansion’s restoration and played a role in other ambitious projects, including the regeneration of Somerset House, an 18th-century building overlooking the River Thames in London. In addition to many art-related positions in Britain and elsewhere, he was chairman of the trustees of London’s National Gallery from 1985 to 1991.

Mr. Rothschild married Serena Dunn, racehorse owner, in 1961; she died in 2019. He had four children, Hannah, Beth, Emily and Nathaniel, and several grandchildren. Complete information about his survivors was not immediately available.

For all his standing among the world’s wealthy elite, Mr. Rothschild was openly critical of some of his colleagues in the international financial system. In 2012, four years after the 2008 economic crisis, he told The Jerusalem Report that he had “a lot of sympathy for people who were protesting some of the excesses in the financial world.”

“After all, here are characters who have made great fortunes, who have presided over a system that has been very damaging to many interests over the last five to 10 years,” he said. “They have had enormous benefits, but the banking system as a whole has had a chilling effect in a number of areas around the world.”

Victor Mather reporting contributed.

After disappearing nearly a year ago as part of an investigation by Chinese authorities, prominent investment banker Bao Fan has resigned as chairman and CEO of China Renaissance Holdings, the company said Friday.

Mr Bao, a banker who brokered deals for Chinese internet giants Alibaba and Tencent, went missing last February. China Renaissance initially said it had previously lost contact with Mr Bao explain that he cooperated with an investigation conducted by authorities in China.

Mr Bao's disappearance marked an escalation in Beijing's crackdown on its business elite as part of an anti-corruption campaign. It fueled concerns about the lengths to which Chinese authorities would go to control power players in the domestic economy, while at the same time expanding control over the financial regulatory system.

In a submit On the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, China Renaissance said Mr. Bao was resigning for “health reasons and to devote more time to his family affairs.” The company did not explain the nature of the study in which Mr. Bao participated.

In addition to giving up his position as CEO, the company said Mr Bao had also resigned from the company's board of directors.

“Mr. Bao has confirmed that he has no disagreement with the board and that no other matter regarding his resignation should be brought to the attention of the company's shareholders,” China Renaissance said.

Mr. Bao was a well-connected banker at Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse before founding China Renaissance in 2004, which invested in many of the country's most successful technology companies and helped them go public in Hong Kong and New York.

Xie Yijing, who served as interim director in Mr. Bao's absence, was appointed chairman and designated as the permanent head of China Renaissance, according to the filing.

Before Mr Bao's disappearance, Cong Lin, another director at China Renaissance, was detained by authorities in 2022 as part of an investigation into his actions before joining the company.

China has targeted financial firms as part of its efforts to rein in companies and executives in the name of strengthening national security. Over the past year, Chinese authorities have attacked and raided several consulting firms with foreign ties. In November, the Chinese Ministry of State Security said said it was a 'faithful guardian of financial security'.

On Tuesday, inside an article on the ministry's WeChat page titled “Ten Cups of Tea” – a nod to coming in “for tea” as a euphemism for being interrogated – the agency listed ten actions that would arouse suspicion under China's counterintelligence law. A revision of the law last year broadened the definition of what constitutes espionage, fueling concerns that employees at foreign companies could be swept up for participating in normal business activities such as gathering information about industries and competitors.

Edward E. Crutchfield, a banker who grew a small North Carolina bank into one of the nation's largest on a deal-making spree that earned him the nickname “Fast Eddie” and helped build Charlotte into a national financial center, died on January 2. at his home in Vero Beach, Florida. He was 82.

His death was confirmed by his son, Elliott Crutchfield, who said his father had dementia.

When Mr. Crutchfield graduated from business school in 1965, he took a job as a credit analyst at First Union bank in Charlotte, NC. It was the lowest-paying job he was offered, but he thought he could advance more quickly at a smaller bank. He sensed opportunities, he told his family and colleagues, at the bank and in the region.

Both premonitions paid off. At the age of 32, just seven years after joining First Union, he became president of First Union. He was believed to be the youngest person in the country to hold that title at a major bank. His ambitions were broadened by a 1985 Supreme Court ruling legalizing interstate banking. The decision gave Mr. Crutchfield, by then his bank's chairman and CEO, the power to swallow up rival banks and failed thrifts, transforming First Union into a super-regional bank with thousands of branches across the Southeast.

“I just had a feeling that what turned out to be the Sun Belt would be a good bet,” he told The New York Times in 1983, shortly before he began his buying spree. “I think we're rubbing the rabbit's foot the right way.”

By the time Mr. Crutchfield retired in 2000, First Union had acquired more than 90 banking and lending companies, becoming the nation's sixth-largest bank by assets. In 2001, First Union merged with Wachovia and adopted the other bank's name. Wells Fargo bought Wachovia in 2008, during the crisis that reshaped the financial industry.

Mr Crutchfield's impression lives on in the major role Charlotte continues to play in the banking industry. Wells Fargo has 27,000 employees there, more than at its San Francisco headquarters.

“Ed just had a vision where he thought we could be one of the best and one of the largest banks in America, and he grew toward that,” said Austin Adams, who served as First Union's chief information officer for 17 years .

Edward Elliott Crutchfield Jr. was born on July 14, 1941 in Dearborn, Michigan, and grew up in Albemarle, NC, a rural town about 40 miles from Charlotte. His father worked for the FBI before becoming a lawyer and district judge. His mother, Katherine (Sikes) Crutchfield, was a high school teacher.

He attended Davidson College on a football scholarship, graduating in 1963, after which he earned an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His marriage to Nancy Robson ended in divorce. In 1996 he married Barbara Massa, director of corporate communications at First Union. In addition to his son, he is survived by a daughter, Sally Davis, both children from his first marriage; a stepdaughter, Elizabeth Howze; his wife; and five grandchildren.

At First Union he quickly established himself as a go-getter. Shortly after joining the bank, he founded the municipal bond department. In 1968, at the age of 26, he was asked to solve serious problems in the bank's credit card business. He kept the back office open 24 hours a day and brought a cot to sleep on. “I felt I should be there to welcome the night shift and the 8 a.m. shift,” he told The Times.

As a manager, he had a reputation for not delegating, a style he had to adapt as the bank grew. But when he took over a new bank, one of the first things he did was take over the bank's investment portfolio. He was also quick to rebrand new acquisitions and developed what Mr. Adams called “the nation's fastest integration model.”

“It never took more than 11 months from the time we announced the transaction until we converted all the systems, changed the signage, the products, the branches, everything,” Mr. Adams said.

Mr. Crutchfield, according to his son, was “a typical Southerner” who loved hunting, fly fishing and living far away from Wall Street. “He relished our underdog status and enjoyed seeing Charlotte outgrow its rivals as much as First Union outgrew other banks,” the younger Mr Crutchfield said.

When he set his sights on a target, he didn't like to be defeated. To convince Malcolm McDonald to sell Signet Banking Corporation to First Union for $3.25 billion in 1997, Mr. Crutchfield joked, “I just kept stacking billion-dollar bills on the table until Mac said yes.”

There were stumbling blocks. In 1998, First Union bought CoreStates Financial for $17 billion—a record six times the bank's book value and at the time the largest bank merger in U.S. history—and then lost 20 percent of CoreStates' two million customers in an effort to the path away from human counters and towards telephone and internet services. One of Mr Crutchfield's last purchases, from home loan lender the Money Store, turned into a money pit and was soon closed by his successor.

Ken Gepfert, a First Union employee who worked as Mr. Crutchfield's speechwriter for several years, said his boss once recounted a conversation he had with his father, who was also a devoted fisherman, about his acquisitive tendencies. Bank.

“His father said, 'Son, I hope you don't catch them faster than you can tie them up,'” Mr. Gepfert said. “Ed knew that First Union had to expand quickly to survive in the interstate banking industry. But privately, he always said one of his biggest fears was that First Union would grow too big and lose its community-oriented roots.”