Exclusive | 'China's rich always ask how to keep wealth in the family', reveals Ariane de Rothschild
Ariane de Rothschild's family has kept its wealth for centuries, an issue which is now facing newly rich Chinese families
Ariane de Rothschild, who ranks second only to her husband, Benjamin, at the legendary financial dynasty's Edmond de Rothschild Group, says rich Chinese friends and clients ask her the same question whenever she visits the mainland: how can you keep your family wealth for generation after generation? And how has the Rothschild family done that for centuries?
Her husband is a sixth-generation scion of a dynasty that started more than two centuries ago.
The group's vice-chairwoman, who was born in El Salvador, educated in the United States and lives in Geneva, told the that the question raised by many rich Chinese families, which had gathered their wealth rapidly in the past two to three decades, or even in just a few years as part of the national economic growth story, reflected the urgent need for those families to get to the real meaning of being wealthy.
"China is already in that kind of debate about their roles [of rich families] in the society, their contributions to the society and so on, besides just making money," Rothschild said. "Now it's also about how they can change the country or change the world.
"A lot of Chinese families that I see [ask me] the first question 'how do you do it?' as now we pass on [the wealth of the Rothschild family] to the seventh generation."
In recent years, family wealth and succession have been a hot topic on the mainland, already the world's second-biggest economy after the United States.
