Hedge fund tycoon Sir Chris Hohn pockets £343m in record payday
Hedge fund billionaire Sir Chris Hohn paid himself £343m ($479m) last year in what is believed to be the UK’s largest ever annual pay packet.
The tycoon took home the record wage after his Children’s Investment Fund (TCI) booked pre-tax profit of $695m, up from $420m the previous year.
The bumper salary, paid for the year to 29 February 2020, equates to £940,000 each day, or an hourly wage of £39,000.
It eclipses the previous record of £323m paid to Bet 365 boss Denise Coates in 2018.
The sum was paid in the form of dividends from TCI to Hohn’s personal company TCI Fund Management UK, according to filings on Companies House.
The documents showed Hohn’s firm held investments totalling just under $2bn at the end of the year. The company is registered at TCI’s Clifford House offices in Mayfair, but its ultimate parent company is based in the Cayman Islands tax haven.
The hedge fund boss, whose personal fortune is estimated at $5.9bn by Forbes, set up TCI in 2003 and has gained a reputation as one of the City’s most successful stock pickers.
He previously hired chancellor Rishi Sunak to help run his hedge fund.
TCI has built significant stakes in some of the world’s biggest companies, including Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet.
Hohn, the son of a Jamaican car mechanic who came to Britain in the 1960s, is also known for his philanthropy.
In 2019 he donated $386m through his Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, a rise of $64m on the previous year.