Unbelievable! I wonder why this is happening now. What do they know? Remember, a dead fish begins to smell from the head first.
Rothschild to pull out of gold market
N M Rothschild, the investment bank, is to withdraw from the gold market, turning the page on two centuries of history.
The same company that smuggled gold coins across the English Channel to finance the Duke of Wellington's military advance through France 200 years ago will also withdraw from the twice-daily London gold fixing, which it has chaired since the first fix of the gold price took place in 1919.
This follows a review by Baron David de Rothschild, the bank's new chairman, concluding that it should withdraw completely from commodity trading.
This means Rothschild will also pull out of oil trading - less than a year after announcing an expansion into that area.
Baron David said the income generated by commodity trading was increasingly insignificant to the bank. "Five or 10 years down the road, can we be a meaningful house in commodities? The answer must be 'No'," he said.
Gold producers were buying far fewer hedges, which Rothschild specialised in and the firm had neither the infrastructure nor the risk appetite to be a big trader, he added.
"It is clear that the revenues we have generated from commodities - in comparison with those from investment banking, [corporate] banking and those we think we can generate from private banking - have definitely declined," he said.
Up to 40 jobs could be lost by the move and about £50m of capital will be released. This will be reinvested in developing the bank's nascent private banking business and in expanding its corporate banking operation.
It has recently made some small acquisitions in asset finance and is keen to be a more aggressive lender in property, natural resources, acquisition finance and structured finance, Baron David said.
He is also looking at putting some of the capital into a new fund which would make principal investments and in which staff could participate.
Withdrawing from the gold market is a break with the era of Baron David's predecessor and distant cousin, Sir Evelyn de Rothschild. Sir Evelyn was always proud of the bank's association with the gold market, but handed over control of the bank last year and stepped down as chairman last month. "Evelyn is perfectly relaxed and supportive [of the exit from gold trading]," Baron David said.
"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws" -- Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild
"The few who understand the system, will either be so interested from it's profits or so dependant on it's favors, that there will be no opposition from that class." -- Rothschild Brothers of London, 1863
"We have long printed gold nationally. Why should we not print it internationally?" --J.M. Keynes
