Rothschild counts cost as RIT Capital's fortunes take a tumble

Lord Rothschild, who linked arms with the Rockefeller dynasty in the US this week, showed yesterday that even the biggest names are struggling in these volatile markets.

The financier, who is worth an estimated £465m, saw his RIT Capital investment trust lose £55.8m in the year to March and struck a downbeat tone on global prospects.

He said: "The Western world may have finally woken up last year: it realised that the crash of 2008 was not just another market event, quickly to be recovered from. Recovery may come, but not in months. Unless one has a long horizon, investment success in public markets has become a game of timing rather than fundamentals."

Lord Rothschild today pointed to the trust's strong track record since 1988, but added: "Over the past three years, as markets recovered from the crash of 2008, we have barely level-pegged."

He claimed some successes, such as a £73m profit on RIT's stake in oil explorer Agora, and jacked up the dividend to reassure investors.