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Allying with fun-loving Cousin Edmond, the banking Rothschilds have also got into the tourist boom. They hold the largest single share in a new company that is erecting ski resorts in the Alps, building bungalow villages in Majorca, investigating sites for motels near the new Mont Blanc tunnel. From the U.S.'s Restaurant Associates, Cousin Elie recently bought an interest in France's largest casino, at Divonne-les-Bains. Cousin Edmond himself has poured $5,000,000 into France's plushest Alpine resort at Megève, has large shares in a European travel club (100,000 members and 17 vacation villages), and has helped finance hotels for Pan Am's Intercontinental Hotels Corp. Besides his controlling or significant interests in two dozen other enterprises—the biggest machine-tool company in Brazil, supermarkets and mutual funds in Europe, a pipeline from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean—Edmond is a partner with the British Rothschilds in building both economy and luxury (up to $90 per day for a couple) resorts in Israel.
Most Secretive. In London, N. M. Rothschild & Sons is constructing a new, six-story headquarters in the City to symbolize its revival. It continues to be Britain's most secretive bank, but it is getting a little less so. To lure fresh talent and provide for its expanding services, the bank has admitted three non-Rothschilds as partners (the family still controls with four partners). The British Rothschilds, who still are the world's most important bullion dealers, have started a factoring company, an investment advisory service and two mutual funds, are participating in a consortium to underwrite pay TV and in a group of Europe's gilt-edge banks called Euro-syndicat, which was organized to seize opportunities in the Common Market.
In their most ambitious project, the British Rothschilds put together a consortium to tap the timber, minerals and hydro power of a 53,000-sq.-mi. area in Newfoundland. Next spring the British Newfoundland Corp., with both the British and the French Rothschilds represented, will begin a $1 billion, seven-year job to dam Hamilton Falls and harness its 6,000,000 h.p. It will be the world's biggest hydroelectric development, and Sir Winston Churchill has called the whole project "a grand imperial concept."
World Network. Rather than run companies by themselves, the Rothschilds often prefer to start or join syndicates, placing their men on boards to exert maximum influence with minimum investment risk. The partners regularly hop across continents to keep an eye on managements (Edmund visits Canada half a dozen times yearly), and a far spreading network of agents, who seldom even admit that they are employed by the Rothschilds, report constantly on fresh opportunities. Rarely does this discreet family exercise its powers to reorganize companies or juggle managements. Says Guy: "The French don't like violent reshufflings, outside of politics that is. It's not good form."