A financial offer e-mailed to 80,000 people has been withdrawn by the company that published it after a complaint about the way it referred to the Rothschild banking family.
The offer, distributed by Fleet Street Publications, referred to the 239-year-old “Rothschild Recession Code” with a history of the family inferring that it secretly controlled world finance.
The idea behind the e-mail shot was to offer investors the chance to buy the same shares as the Rothschilds.
It claimed: “No one living knows just how rich they are today. Estimates range from US$150 billion to $100 trillion”. The family had “profited” from political instability in Europe, a sick Bank of England, the great banking panic of 1857 and the Wall Street crash.
Another headline claimed the “Rothschild ‘Recession Code’ fund delivers 709%”.
One recipient was accountant Ken Solomons, from Hendon in north London, who said: “I couldn’t believe it. I get a lot of e-mails promoting shares and investments but this was something different and from a reputable company.
“They were accusing the Rothschild family of starting wars and controlling everything, linking them to all sorts of prominent families. I sent them an e-mail complaining about it but I didn’t get a response. The company is registered with the Financial Services Authority and I have complained to them.”
Ryan McErlean, a marketing executive at Fleet Street Publications, said: “It was not our intention to offend anyone with this offer, so we will withdraw it straight away.
“When we drew it up it was a really interesting story of a very successful family that had come through all sorts of crises in the last 200 years and here was an opportunity to follow their financial expertise. We never read it like this at all.
“We’re a small company and have no wish to be drawn into any political or religious issues.”
A spokesman for the Community Security Trust said: "This is a bizarre email. It may not be ostensibly antisemitic, but it certainly risks such an interpretation."