Ex-Goldman Trader Who Ran LSE Bets on Bees for Family Winery

(Bloomberg) -- Xavier Rolet knows how to manage the pinstriped population of London’s financial district.

After starting out as a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. trader, he spent almost a decade as chief executive officer of London Stock Exchange Group, the market infrastructure company with 4,500 employees. The firm’s value rose fivefold during his time there, and Rolet collected more than $50 million in total compensation.

Still, people make up only a fraction of the workforce that Rolet has managed. Along with his latest role as CEO of London-based hedge fund CQS, which oversees roughly $18 billion, Rolet looks after a dozen beehives that host about 50,000 of the buzzing insects. In astronaut-like gear, he tends to these hives at Chene Bleu, a chemical-free winery in Provence he bought in 1993. His wife Nicole runs the vineyard, which is seeking funding in exchange for tours and offerings of wine and honey.

“In a way, bees are like an investment bank or an asset-management company, or a human social network group,” Rolet said in an interview. “They are geared toward accomplishing a particular purpose, and there’s incredible discipline and versatility in beehives. If you analyze their social characteristics, there are many aspects that mirror human society and its utilitarian approach.”

Rolet, 59, isn’t the only finance figure with a hobby. Goldman Sachs boss David Solomon disc jockeys on weekends as DJ D-Sol. Warren Buffett plays the ukulele, while former Twitter Inc. CEO Dick Costolo also keeps bees.

Bloomberg recently spoke with Rolet about winemaking, his beekeeping background and what he thinks of LSE’s proposed $27 billion acquisition of financial data company Refinitiv. Comments have been edited and condensed.

How did you come across this vineyard?

I’d been looking for a while. One day, I bumped into a tiny Realtor’s office in a small village in the south of France. There was a sepia-colored Polaroid that had probably been there 10 years. There was no information about price, ownership or location. I walked in and there was a 70-something-year-old man who couldn’t for his life tell me where the property was. But he said he’d look into it, and he called back six months later to say he found it. It was a very old building, built in the ninth century, and had been abandoned for many decades. An elderly gentleman owned the building who just wanted to sell it and give a bit of an inheritance to his children.

What was the restoration like?

It’s taken about 20 years to fix it up and build a winery. At first, there was no water or electricity, but there was an incredible diversity in the soil. Think of it as buying a depressed, cheap stock with huge potential and a long history, like these companies that have been around a long time that have been managed into the ground. With a bit of smart repositioning you can really use all that history, that positioning and that brand to create long-term value.

Why do you use bees in your vineyard?

They’re a bit like the canary in the coal mine. They’re extremely sensitive to chemical pollution and adverse conditions. If you have an unhealthy environment, your bee colonies will not survive.

Initially, we went to organic management on the estate and then biodynamic, which is one step further and means that we don’t use any synthetic chemicals, fertilizers or insecticides. We use propolis -- a resinous mixture that honey bees produce -- as a natural treatment for the vines.

How did you get into beekeeping?

I grew up on an estate in eastern Paris where they tore up farmland to build concrete towers. There was an old man, a widower, who refused to sell and still had a little house and a garden, so they built around him. One day I passed his garden, where he had some beehives, and noticed he was struggling to carry some frames for the hives, so I asked if he needed help.

Over time, he taught me how to take care of bees. I would help him during the feeding season and harvest and he showed me how to clean the hives. I was still at primary school in this period, and the man passed away eventually and they tore down his house, but I always remembered beekeeping.

And you put a hive on LSE Group’s roof?

We didn’t produce a lot of honey, as there aren’t that many flowers across the City of London, but we worked with kids who had difficulties at school to look after the beehives and give a sense of responsibility. We put the honey we did get into little pots and gifted them to visiting dignitaries or investors doing IPOs. People loved it. I don’t know if they still do it, but we had fun setting it up.

What do you think of the Refinitiv deal?

It looks like a great deal for Blackstone, who have more than doubled their money in 10 months. Notwithstanding the economics for London Stock Exchange, investors will like the increased exposure to Global Data and dollar earnings revenues. It offers good synergies for LSEG’s MTS fixed-income trading, but does represent a major integration challenge. Some products like Forex or the terminal business have gone ex-growth. Two important strategic missing pieces remain: global collateral management or global futures, although the progress made by Curve Global is encouraging.

Is your vineyard part of a retirement plan?

I’m not sure I’m looking at it as an active part of retirement. You just vary your activities. I really care about this place, and so does Nicole. We hope that our children or other interested parties will take it over for the next generation. It’s been a fantastic project to bring the property back to life.

With some success, you can buy some property, have a fancy car, invest and make more money. But you can also build something that will outlast you and can hopefully make a contribution and your kids or the younger generation can have some fun being associated with it. I think that you need some heritage you can pass on, rather than telling your kid: “You inherit these treasury bonds.” They can decide to sell, of course, but if it’s something that interests them it can give purpose. Being close to nature and producing food that isn’t completely laced with chemicals is satisfactory.

What’s your view on Extinction Rebellion?

The issues they raise around poverty, climate change, migration, security are global. No country on their own can resolve pollution or climate change. That means these issues can only be resolved if the world evolves toward global political governance for them. That’s the big question of the day. Are we going to go back to a national fragmented model? We tried the extreme twice in the last century and cost millions of lives. It’s called World War I and World War II.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Stupples in London at bstupples@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Steven Crabill, Peter Eichenbaum

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