After the war and the restitution of some assets, Rothschild heirs, except for Louis’s daughter Bettina Looram, spent little time in Austria. The last Rothschild working for an Austrian bank was Geoffrey Hoguet, who worked for Creditanstalt’s investment bank until 1997.
Creditanstalt’s iconic headquarters was sold by UniCredit Bank Austria AG in 2014 and is currently being turned into a high-end supermarket. Burr, Looram’s daughter, in 2015 donated to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts works that had been looted by the Nazis and returned to the family.
Austria and the family made their peace in the last few decades, Sandgruber said. “The relationship between the family and Austria was not the easiest one, but there was some sort of mutual appreciation after the final art restitutions about 20 years ago,” he said.
Prinzhorn’s Plans
The buyer of the second Rothschild property, Cord Prinzhorn, will be reuniting the two family forests. He bought the smaller part, measuring 5,400 hectares, last year for 92 million euros ($105 million). The price of the second part of the forest is a bit higher than the first, according to two of the people.
Prinzhorn Holding declined to comment. Efforts to reach Bettina Burr through phone numbers listed in the phone directory were unsuccessful.
Prinzhorn started with a small paper mill in Pitten, about an hour south of Vienna, in 1853. Cord Prinzhorn’s father built the company into a European player after taking it over in the 1970s, and the company is now expanding across Europe and into countries such as Turkey.
The forest Prinzhorn is buying is full of historic lodges that were built about 120 years ago, and is in one of the most popular hiking, fishing and nature-rich areas around Vienna. While Prinzhorn has said he sees the forests as a long-term asset and a renewable source of a raw material, he also wants to preserve the historic buildings and maintain the lands as spaces for animals and for people to hike, fish or just enjoy the outdoors.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.