Rothschild is planning to re-enter the Austrian private banking market, after an absence of more than 70 years, by opening a representative office in Vienna in 2009.

The private bank will focus initially on asset management for wealthy clients, Rothschild's head of Germany, Hayo Willms, told the Economic Bulletin.

The Rothschild banking family of Austria was founded by Salomon Mayer von Rothschild in 1820 having been sent to Vienna from his home in Frankfurt, Germany by his father, Mayer Amschel Rothschild. He established S M von Rothschild as a banking and investment entity which was continued until the 1938 Anschluss of Austria to Nazi Germany when the firm was placed under compulsory administration and then sold to German private bank Merck, Finck & Co.