Nat Rothschild, from playboy to tycoon

George Osborne's spectacular falling-out with his one-time friend Nathaniel Rothschild (pictured), who alleged in a letter to the Times on Tuesday that the shadow chancellor had solicited a £50,000 donation from the Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, has certainly made Osborne persona non grata with the powerful and super-rich Rothschild family. The banking dynasty had been planning to hold a lavish fundraising event for the Conservatives early next year, but as a result of the current brouhaha that is now "up in the air".

A source close to the Rothschild family said archly: "It's not clear that George would want the fundraiser [now]". The Rothschilds are piqued that Osborne allegedly leaked a story to the press about Peter Mandelson meeting Deripaska, both friends of Nat's, in Corfu over the summer. In their view this was bad manners, especially as Osborne had been invited to the family's villa on the island.

The Rothschild's detachment will be of concern to Osborne, who continues to deny Rothschild's claim that he sought a donation from Deripaska while on board his yacht Queen K in August (or that Andrew Feldman, the party’s chief executive, suggested a way round the law against foreign donations would be to channel the gift through one of the billionaire's British companies). The family have been highly supportive of Osborne in the past. Nat's mother, Lady Rothschild, the wife of Jacob Rothschild, donated £190,000 to fund the shadow chancellor's office last year.

Meanwhile, the row has focused public attention on the remarkable ascent of 37-year old Rothschild himself. His rise to wealth and influence is the "story of a transformation from prodigal son to international powerbroker", claims the Guardian. "As a young man, the fifth Baron Rothschild-in-waiting was famed more for his partying on the London social circuit and his drinking with the raucous Bullingdon dining and drinking club at Oxford University [he was in the club at the same time as Osborne] than for any business acumen which might burnish the reputation of his family's 200-year-old banking dynasty."

However, those wild years, which included a failed marriage to the model Annabelle Neilson, were relatively short-lived. He now has a partnership in Atticus Capital, a $14bn New York-based hedge fund, a web of private equity investments in Ukraine and eastern Europe and homes in Corfu, Paris, Moscow and London as well as his principal home in Klosters, Switzerland, from where he penned his now famous letter to the Times.

Rothschild's wealth, which was put at £1.4bn in the 2008 Sunday Times Rich List, is largely derived from the family’s stake in the London-based investment trust RIT and his own stake in Atticus, which alone has been estimated at £350m. "This is the story of Prince Hal turning into Henry V," says Charles Phillips, a former colleague. "He is one of the few sons of great men who has enhanced the family stature and created his own wealth."
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