Urs Schwarzenbach
| Urs Schwarzenbach | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Urs Ernst Schwarzenbach 1948 Thalwil, Switzerland |
| Residence | UK |
| Nationality | Swiss |
| Net worth | GBP £1.0 billion (April 2015) |
| Spouse(s) | Francesca |
| Children | 2 |
| Relatives | Clifton Hugh Lancelot de Verdon Wrottesley, 6th Baron Wrottesley (son-in-law) |
Urs Ernst Schwarzenbach, CStJ (born 1948) is a UK-based Swiss financier. In April 2015, the Sunday Times estimated his net worth at £1.0 billion
Urs Schwarzenbach was born in Thalwil in 1948, and raised in Küsnacht. He is the son of a print shop owner.
Schwarzenbach set up Interexchange, the largest foreign exchange dealership in Switzerland. Through its success, he has bought well over £300m of property in the UK, 123,000 acres (500 km2) in Australia, a palace in Morocco, £17m of assets in the aviation field and the Grand Hotel Dolder in Zürich. He also has his own polo team, the Black Bears, which has some 600 horses, with 350 in Australia and 250 in the UK.
He personally backed the racing-themed restaurant Café Grand Prix in Mayfair, London, but this went into liquidation in 2004. In 2005, Schwarzenbach was estimated to be worth around £900m but, according to The Sunday Times Rich List 2012, he was ranked 87th with an estimated worth of circa £850m.
In 2007, Schwarzenbach outbid other foreign buyers to acquire Culham Court, a 650-acre (2.6 km2) riverside estate downstream of Henley-on-Thames on the Berkshire bank. Schwarzenbach bought the estate from Paddy and Annabel Nicoll: Mrs Nicoll's father was Martyn Arbib, former head of the Perpetual fund management company, who bought the estate as a wedding present for her in 1997 for a mere £12 million. Coincidentally, Culham's connections with the world of finance run deeper still: Arbib acquired the property from Felicity Behrens, wife of the banker Michael Behrens, who lived there for nearly half a century from 1949 to 1996.
Schwarzenbach's development of the Culham Court estate still continues apace with the ongoing extension of the existing 90-acre (360,000 m2) deer park with over 4 kilometres of wrought iron deer fencing, a mile long "London" drive through beautiful beech woodland to the main road, the 2010 £8 million acquisition of three cottages and the original walled gardens which will be reinstated to provide fresh fruit and vegetables for the main house, a new ha-ha, and an extensive state of the art 24/7 security system including a "hard" room.
The latest creation is a maze requiring the planting of 20,000 mature yew bushes, and this is just part of the 20-year plan that has been devised for the gardens and grounds. Another property acquired for £2m in 2010, and situated on raised ground that overlooks Culham Court, is set to be demolished and Culham Chapel is to be built in its place. Symm, the Oxford-based building company undertaking all the work on the Culham estate, now sponsors the Hambleden Horse Trials.
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