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From Komfie Manalo, Opalesque Asia:

Lord Rothschild’s London-listed RIT Capital Partners’ assets fell by £190.1m ($296.7m) since March as at end September 30, 2011, from £1.984bn ($3.09bn) to £1.794bn ($2.8bn) because of the lingering European sovereign debt issue.

Lord Rothschild, chairman of the firm, described Europe as the "lead violinist in a discordant band."

In the firm’s half-year report to investors, he said that over the last two quarters, Europe fell 27%, European resource stocks and banks fell 36%, and Emerging Markets fell by 23% (all in £ terms): "Only the more modest decline of 12% from US markets moderated the scale of global losses. It has all borne out my warning in June of the "glaring and global" risks confronting the market."

Rothschild pointed out, "It is only mild consolation, therefore, that the decline in our net asset value per share in the six months to end-September has been less than that of our informal benchmarks. Our 9.6% decline to 1,165.9p per share compares with the 15.1% fall in the MSCI World Index (in £), and a 13.5% drop in the FTSE All-Share Index. Over the previous twelve months since September 2010, we are marginally up in value, whereas both the MSCI and FTSE are down."

The chairman of the London-listed hedge fund manager noted that the European crisis has not yet been fully addressed by EU’s policymakers. While the markets posted a brief rally in October, t......................

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