Family fall back on their Faberges

The family responsible for creating the world's best- known "rich list" has fallen on hard times. But not too hard, as TERRY KIRBY reports.


It is a classic case of selling off the family silver. Except that this is no ordinary family and the silver - plus the gold and diamonds - is among the most highly prized in the world.

Perhaps only the royal family disposing of the Crown jewels could compare to the Forbes family selling off its collection of Faberge jewellery.

It is a collection which includes nine of the Faberge Imperial Easter Eggs, the largest collection of the fabled jewel-encrusted eggs made for the Russian Tsars still held in private hands.

The auction at Sotheby's in April is expected to raise US$90 million ($132 million) for the Forbes coffers, which were built on the eponymous financial magazine famous for its annual list of the world's richest people.

But times have changed even for a family so synonymous with money. It is only the latest in a series of fire sales by the four surviving sons of Malcolm Forbes - himself the son of the founder of the glossy business magazine that bears his name.

It is the revenue from these disposals that over the past few years has helped to sustain the family dynasty in the economic downturn.

In many families, the sale of such treasures might cause friction. But the Forbes brothers who now run the publishing business can claim to be acting in Malcolm's name.

"I've often told my children I hope that, if they decide to be done with one of the collections, they will put it back on the auction block so other people can have the same fun and excitement that we did in amassing it," he wrote, shortly before his death.

Malcolm Forbes was certainly a man who knew how to enjoy his money. While his magazine gained circulation unashamedly celebrating the super-rich of the world, Forbes became one of their kind.

He had the yachts and personal jets, the grand houses in the United States, London and Paris and the parties - inviting 800 of his closest friends to his 70th birthday party in Morocco. He owned a South Sea island.

There was also something of an adventurer in him: he held records for air ballooning and once rode a Harley-Davidson from Warsaw to Moscow. He gave millions to charity.

But he was also a collector of almost obsessive zeal, amassing hundreds of paintings, antiques and historical documents, as well as the Faberge eggs and jewellery.

When he bought his 11th Faberge Imperial egg in 1986, the auctioneer brought the hammer down with the cry: "The score now stands: Kremlin 10, Forbes 11." The next year he made it a round dozen.

Among the oddities he bought was the top hat Abraham Lincoln wore the night he was assassinated.

When he died in 1990, Forbes was said to be worth between US$750 million and US$1.25 billion, although modesty forbade his inclusion in the Forbes 400, the magazine's annual league table of America's super-rich.

But that was in the 1980s. In the harsher economic climate of the late 1990s, his sons - Steve, Timothy, Robert and Christopher - have struggled to keep the business afloat.

The Forbes influence is now a matter for debate. "I'm not sure whether it's required reading any more because there is so much competition from other magazines," one city figure said. The chief problem it has faced has been the advertising recession and the economic downturn, which has hit all sections of the media badly.

In 2002, advertising revenue dropped 16 per cent, the company shed 25 jobs and some managers were forced to take pay cuts.

Although the company keeps its financial cards to its chest, it denies any serious problems. But one former Forbes employee said: "There was a general feeling that things were not going well, but it was very difficult to find out because they kept things very tight."

Undoubtedly the biggest drain on the family finances has been the two failed attempts to run for the Republican nomination for the US presidency by Steve Forbes on a vigorous rightwing ticket.

Forbes, who is editor-in-chief of the magazine, is believed to have spent a total of US$66 million on his 1996 and 2000 campaigns - significantly, he is not running again this year.

Unable to shed any spare companies in order to keep the core business afloat, the family has turned to the collections amassed by Forbes senior.

In 2001, a collection of American paintings and sculpture realised US$4.6 million. Since then, a first Faberge sale raised US$6 million and an auction of historical documents, including a manuscript of Abraham Lincoln's last speech, raised US$30 million.

A year ago, Christopher Forbes, another brother, raised US$31 million by selling 350 pre-Raphaelite and Victorian paintings from his collection housed at the family's London home.

But the Faberge sale is by far the most spectacular. The highlight of the auction will be the 12cm-high diamond encrusted Coronation Egg, commissioned by Tsar Nicholas II after he was crowned in Moscow to present to his Tsarina in Easter 1897. It is estimated to fetch at least US$18 million.

So the Forbes have opened the vaults again and brought out some of the family's most prized possessions, which are sure to keep them in sufficient funds for the foreseeable future.

- INDEPENDENT