Peter Hargreaves: an upset for the world’s happiest billionaire

Peter Hargreaves created a FTSE 100 company from scratch without borrowing or acquisition – and without scandal – at least until the Woodford one blew up in its face. 

952-profile

Peter Hargreaves: a great boss is having his patience tested
(Image credit: 2010 Bloomberg)

Peter Hargreaves reinvented investment for the masses, banking £4bn in the process. But he also inherited the traits of his frugal father who ran a small bakery in Lancashire. "He hates ostentation, dislikes excessive borrowing, and won't even live abroad to avoid tax," observed The Guardian in 2011. Last year, Hargreaves these days a fanatical grower of dahlias and amateur Egyptologist described himself as "the happiest and most contented billionaire on the planet". Imagine, then, the hell of the past few weeks. Thanks to its close links with fund manager Neil Woodford, Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) the firm he co-founded with Stephen Lansdown in 1981 from his spare bedroom in Bristol is in the eye of one of the biggest storms to hit the investment world in years.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up

Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.