Chris Hohn once described himself as an “unbelievable moneymaker”. He’s not wrong about that, says Forbes. Hohn’s London-based firm, TCI Fund Management, made more money in financial markets than any of the world’s most successful hedge funds in 2019. Unlike many of his counterparts, Hohn has consistently outperformed, producing $22.8bn of net gains between 2004 and 2019. Last year he also set a new UK record for pay – collecting £343m in annual dividend payments, which amounts to around £1m a day. Quite a feat for a man who once claimed: “I don’t really care about money”.
Majoring in yoga
Hohn, 55, has made his name, and his cash, as an aggressive activist investor, unafraid to shake up boards – and as a determined philanthropist, says The Guardian. His former wife once explained that setting up The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (TCI) was “not about putting a warm and fuzzy face” on his activities, but “very much about keeping Chris motivated” to produce the highest returns possible: the business was set up so that one third of TCI’s management fees went straight to the couple’s children’s charity foundation.
He practises an ascetic lifestyle – avoiding meat and doing yoga – and has long embraced green causes. Even so, says Metro, it comes as something of a surprise to learn that the billionaire knight who once employed chancellor Rishi Sunak is a leading funder of the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion.
MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE
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
Born in 1966, to a Jamaican car mechanic who came to Britain in the 1960s, and a legal secretary, Hohn grew up in Addlestone, Surrey, and gained a first-class degree in accounting and business economics from Southampton University. He was greatly affected by a trip to the Philippines “where, as a 20-year-old, he saw children living on a rubbish dump”, says The Guardian. He became determined then to become a philanthropist, but realised that “a dream or aspiration without resources is just that” – paving the way for an MBA at Harvard.
He went on to work for private-equity group Apax Partners before moving to the Wall Street hedge fund Perry Capital and moving back to Britain in 1998 to become head of its London operation. He struck out on his own in 2003 to form TCI, seeking to apply a private-equity manager’s mindset to researching publicly traded companies and buying out deeply undervalued stocks, says Institutional Investor. This quickly earned him enemies. One opponent, former Deutsche Börse boss Werner Seifert, was so angry after losing a boardroom battle that he wrote a book, Invasion of the Locusts, describing Hohn’s style as “poison”.
An extinction rebellion
Hohn does seem to have captured “the zeitgeist” in the battle to stem climate change, however, says City AM. As ever, he��s standing apart from the mainstream – slamming collective initiatives such as the UN Principles for Responsible Banking and Glasgow Net Zero Banking Alliance, led by Mark Carney, for dragging their feet over putting an “end to risk fossil-fuel lending”. A particular bête noir is fellow London hedgie Crispin Odey, who recently described buying up unloved oil and gas stocks as “a great... idea”. It’s not exactly “Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua”, says the Financial Times, but the stakes don’t get much higher in this heavyweight clash. Hohn and Odey “are scrapping over the survival of the planet”.
-
Cash ISA cuts: millions of savers face £1,200 tax bill after five yearsA combination of cuts to the cash ISA allowance and higher income tax on savings will deal a blow to savers as many could face a tax bill
-
No peace dividend in Trump's Russia-Ukraine peace planOpinion An end to fighting in Ukraine will hurt defence shares in the short term, but the boom is likely to continue given US isolationism, says Matthew Lynn
-
Chen Zhi: the kingpin of a global conspiracyChen Zhi appeared to be a business prodigy investing in everything from real estate to airlines. Prosecutors allege he is the head of something more sinister
-
Who is Jared Isaacman, SpaceX astronaut and Trump's pick as NASA chief?Jared Isaacman is a close ally of Elon Musk and the first non-professional astronaut to walk in space. Now, he is in charge of NASA
-
Defeat into victory: the key to Next CEO Simon Wolfson's successOpinion Next CEO Simon Wolfson claims he owes his success to a book on military strategy in World War II. What lessons does it hold, and how did he apply them to Next?
-
'We still live in Alan Greenspan’s shadow'When MoneyWeek launched 25 years ago, Alan Greenspan was chairman of the Federal Reserve. We’re still living with the consequences of the whirlwind he sowed
-
Isaac Newton's golden legacy – how the English polymath created the gold standard by accidentIsaac Newton brought about a new global economic era by accident, says Dominic Frisby
-
'How I brought MoneyWeek to the masses'Launching MoneyWeek gave ordinary investors information – and hence power, says Merryn Somerset Webb
-
'Why I launched MoneyWeek'Inspired by The Week and uninspired by the financial press, Jolyon Connell decided it was time for a new venture. That's where MoneyWeek came in
-
The Stella Show is still on the road – can Stella Li keep it that way?Stella Li is the globe-trotting ambassador for Chinese electric-car company BYD, which has grown into a world leader. Can she keep the motor running?
