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11/14/2017 An Inside Look at Rockefeller & Co. - Barron's | wsJ | WSJ LIVE | MARKETWATCH | DJX MORE ASIA EDITION BARRON'S PENTA

Rock of Ages

Family-wealth advisor Rockefeller & Co. was hit by both the financial crisis and the death of its CEO. Not only did it survive, it thrived.

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By RICHARD C. MORAIS September 15, 2012

John D. Rockefeller's family office, Rockefeller & Co., was founded in 1882. It began selling its expertise to other families in 1980, and by mid-2008 it had $28 billion of clients' assets under its hood. Then came a tragic event that could have brought the firm to its knees. In September 2009, as the financial crisis raged, Rockefeller's chief executive, James S. McDonald, shot himself behind a car dealership in Dartmouth, Mass.

While world markets continued their downward spiral, it took a year for the Rockefeller Family Trust, which owns 100% of the multifamily office's voting rights, to get McDonald's successor in place.

It's hard to imagine a more dangerous situation for a financial-services firm to be in. Destabilized from within and without, most wealth managers in such circumstances would have been unable to contain the stampede of clients heading out the door. And yet, Rockefeller's assets under advisement and administration actually rose 52%, to $35 billion, in the three years through this past June. Client retention since the 2008 recession has been 97%, 1% higher than in the entire past decade.

"Despite the turbulence of the period when | stepped in, it was a remarkably strong franchise and business," says Reuben Jeffery III, Rockefeller's CEO for the past two years. "It was a real testament to what had been created by generations long before me, including most of the people who are still here today."

Penta's rare peak inside Rockefeller reveals that, for all the outward signs of serenity, the firm is hardly on autopilot. Jeffery, looking every bit the Wall Street incarnation of Cary Grant, is a former Goldman Sachs partner who in 2007 went to work as George Bush's undersecretary of state for economic, energy, and agricultural affairs, after first serving as the president's post-9/11 special advisor for Lower Manhattan development.

In June 2008, Société Générale Private Banking closed on its purchase of a 37% economic share in Rockefeller & Co. Needing to strengthen its balance sheet during the recent euro crisis, the French bank has been under pressure to shed noncore assets. Therein lay an opportunity. This summer Jeffery quietly midwifed the sale of Société Générale's stake to Lord Jacob Rothschild's RIT Capital Partners. That closed-end fund is the investment vehicle for the London branch of the Rothschild family, and has 1.9 billion pounds ($3 billion) under management. The deal is expected to close at the end of this month. It's a union that should provide some valuable marketing opportunities. In these unsettled times, it's easy to imagine rattled new wealth wanting to tap the joint expertise of these experienced families that have managed to keep their heads down

http:/Awww.barrons.com/articles/SB50001 424053111904881 40457760931 2447134388