Vietnam needs vast amounts of capital for high-speed rail, power and other infrastructure. Rothschild & Co is offering something beyond its famous name: expertise in structuring and raising global finance.
From a 19th-century banking empire to global capital markets
Vietnamese Finance Minister Ngo Van Tuan met executives of Rothschild & Co in Paris on Sept. 11, when the financial advisory group proposed cooperation in several areas, including helping mobilize capital for Vietnam's North-South high-speed railway and power projects under the country's Power Development Plan VIII.
The North-South high-speed railway alone has a preliminary investment estimate of about $67 billion, while Vietnam will also require substantial capital for energy infrastructure and other development projects in the coming years.
Rothschild & Co's involvement has attracted attention because its name is associated with one of the world's best-known financial dynasties and more than two centuries of banking history.
The Rothschild story began with Mayer Amschel Rothschild in Frankfurt in the late 18th century. His five sons subsequently established banking houses in Frankfurt, London, Paris, Vienna and Naples, creating a cross-border financial network that was unusual in Europe at the time.
The five Rothschild brothers established banking houses across major European financial centers.
The family's advantage lay not simply in capital, but also in the speed with which it could transmit information, its extensive network of relationships and its ability to move money between financial centers.
During the Napoleonic Wars, that network helped the family transport gold and information.
The Rothschilds also became important arrangers of financing for governments. In Brazil, Nathan Rothschild managed a £2 million loan for the newly independent country in 1825, while the bank later participated in financing for Brazilian railways and other infrastructure.
The scale of the family's wealth in the 19th century can be illustrated by Nathan Rothschild's fortune.
When he died in 1836, his wealth was estimated at about £3.5 million, equivalent to roughly 0.62% of the British economy at the time. Applying the same proportion to Britain's 2025 GDP would produce an equivalent value of more than $20 billion.
For comparison, J.P. Morgan's fortune when he died in 1913 was equivalent to roughly 0.2-0.3% of US GDP. John D. Rockefeller's wealth reached about 2.3% of US GDP at its peak and was equivalent to around 1.5% when he died in 1937. Elon Musk's fortune was estimated at around $900 billion at certain points in 2026, approaching 3% of US GDP.
Some major milestones in the history of the Rothschild banking family. Source: RC
What made the Rothschilds powerful in the 19th century was not the supposed "secret control" of central banks invoked by conspiracy theories, but their position in banking, credit, sovereign bonds, gold markets and information, backed by an extensive cross-border network.
More than 200 years later, Rothschild & Co retains a brand closely associated with that history, although its business model has changed substantially.
What could Rothschild & Co do for Vietnam?
While global banks such as JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are known for the size of their balance sheets and ability to provide a broad range of financial services directly, Rothschild & Co has a stronger emphasis on independent advisory work.
Its operations span three principal businesses: Global Advisory, Wealth and Asset Management, and Five Arrows, its alternative assets arm.
In 2025, Rothschild & Co's Global Advisory business participated in 694 transactions with a combined value of $673 billion. The group says it has about 4,800 employees across 70 locations in more than 50 countries.
Its Global Advisory operation focuses on M&A, strategy, financing and capital-market decisions, with 1,650 bankers operating across 48 countries, according to the company.
Rothschild & Co has a significant presence across Europe.
That distinction is important for understanding what Rothschild & Co could bring to Vietnam.
The group would not necessarily need to provide tens of billions of dollars from its own balance sheet to finance a major Vietnamese project. Its greater potential value could lie in designing financing structures, identifying sources of capital, selecting investors and bringing together different parties in complex transactions.
In that sense, Rothschild & Co could act more like a financial architect than simply a lender.
For Vietnam's North-South high-speed railway, the challenge goes beyond raising approximately $67 billion.
Vietnam must also determine the appropriate balance between public and private capital, develop financing structures, consider domestic and international bond funding and allocate risks between the state and investors.
Rothschild & Co could potentially advise on those questions.
Rothschild & Co operates across Global Advisory, Wealth and Asset Management, and alternative assets.
The same applies to large-scale power projects, where the group could help develop capital structures, identify strategic partners, connect projects with investment funds and international financial institutions, and advise on risk allocation to make projects more attractive to long-term investors.
At the Paris meeting, Rothschild & Co proposed five potential areas of cooperation with Vietnam: accelerating the country's path toward an investment-grade sovereign credit rating; broadening and diversifying its international investor base; developing domestic capital markets; unlocking value from state assets and mobilizing infrastructure financing; and supporting fiscal and tax reforms, including implementation of the OECD's global minimum tax framework.
Vietnam's Finance Minister said the proposals were consistent with the country's development needs and objectives at a time when demand for investment resources is increasing.
Sovereign credit ratings themselves remain the responsibility of agencies including Moody's, S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings.
Rothschild & Co's potential role would instead be advisory: helping Vietnam develop its financial strategy, strengthen relationships with international investors and prepare financing plans that could improve access to global capital.
For Vietnam, therefore, the significance of the Rothschild name may lie less in the fortune accumulated by a famous European banking family two centuries ago than in the modern group's ability to navigate international capital markets as the country looks for ways to finance its next generation of infrastructure.
Vietnamnet.vn
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