British business people: The top 1,000: Private equity and hedge funds 21 to 100

By Andrew CaveLast Updated: 12:04am BST 29/04/2008

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The Telegraph is spotlighting the 1,000 most powerful in British business. These top-ranked British-based business people will be drawn from a range of industries.

We've divided British business into ten broad sectors. We are running a top 100 list in each sector, highlighting the achievements, colourful backgrounds and in some cases the unusual personal interests of the highest-placed executives.

There is no objective way to compile such a broad-based list, so it is unashamedly subjective. This is not a rich list, nor one confined to British nationals, though in the majority of cases those on it spend most of their time in the UK.

Today we're examining some of the figures in the world of hedge funds, private equity and fund management.

British business people: The top 1,000 Hedge funds, private equity and fund management: 20-1

21: Jeremy Coller, chief executive Coller Partners22: Pierre Lagrange, founding partner, GLG Partners23: Roger Jenkins, head of private equity, principal investments and structured capital, Barclays Capital 24: Lord Browne, managing director, Riverstone Holdings25: Martin Clarke, partner, Permira26: Michael Dobson, chief executive, Schroders27: Robert Easton, managing director, Carlyle Group28: Stephen Peel, managing director, Texas Pacific Group29: Michael McLintock, chief executive, M&G30: Donald Mackenzie, managing partner and co-head of global investments, CVC Capital Partners31: Lyndon Lea, founding partner, Lion Capital32: Joseph Baratta, senior managing director, Blackstone Group33: Hughes Lepic, co-head of European Private Equity, Goldman Sachs34: Dick Munton, founding partner, Cinven35: Peter Clarke, chief executive, Man Group36: Brian Magnus, co-head of European private equity, Morgan Stanley37: Guido Padovano, managing director, Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity

38: Adrian Beecroft, senior managing partner, Apax Partners39: Michael Marks, chairman, New Smith Capital40: Sir Brian Williamson, chairman, Electra Private Equity41: Peter Taylor, chief executive, Duke Street Capital42: Jonathan Russell, global head of buyouts, 3i Group43: Gordon Bonnyman, Charterhouse Development Capital44: Colin Buffin, joint managing director, Candover45: Mark Anson, chief executive, Hermes46: Kurt Bjorklund, co-managing partner, Permira47: Tom Lister, co-managing partner, Permira48: David Law, European head of financial sponsors, Morgan Stanley 49: Tony Wyles, co-founder Vitruvian Partners50: Lord Hollick, managing director Kohlberg Kravis Roberts51: Stephen Grabiner, leader of global media team of Apax Partners 52: Stephen Heinz, co-founder, Lansdowne Partners53: Edward Bonham-Carter, chief executive, Jupiter Asset Management54: David Smith, chief investment director, GAM55: Charles Sherwood, partner at Permira56: Hugh Sloane, co-founder, Sloane Robinson57: George Robinson,co-founder, Sloane Robinson58: Elena Ambrosiadou, chief executive Ikos59: Crispin Odey, Odey Asset Management60: Jonathan Bloomer, Cerberus Capital Management61: Jonathan Feuer, managing partner and co-head of UK investments, CVC Capital Partners62: Michael Alen Buckley, executive chairman, RAB Capital63: Gavyn Davies, chairman Fulcrum Asset Management64: Philip Richards, chief investment officer, RAB Capital65: Robin Hall, managing partner Cinven66: Ian Wace, chief executive, Marshall Wace Asset Management67: Paul Marshall, co-founder Marshall Wace Asset Management68: Mike Platt, BlueCrest Capital Management69: Jamie MacLeod, chief executive officer, Skandia Investment Group70: Ian Armitage, HgCapital71: Tim Wong, head of AHL, Man Group72: Paul Ruddock, chief executive, Lansdowne Partners73: Sir George Matthewson, chairman Toscafund74: Roger Guy, Gartmore Global Investments75: William Arah, Marathon Asset Management76: David Gorton, London Diversified Fund Management77:Christian Siva Jothy, SemperMacro78:Jeremy Hermann, Ferox Capital Management79:Charlie Porter, co-founder, Thames River Capital80: Gay Huey-Evans, president Tribeca Global Management (Europe)81: Nat Rothschild, co-chairman, Atticus Capital82: Helena Morrisey, chief executive, Newton Investment Management83: David Cummings, head of UK equities, Standard Life Investments84: Rick Haythornthwaite, partner, Star Capital Partners85: Simon Palley, managing partner, BC Partners86: Baroness Hogg, chairman 3i Group

87: Jean-Pierre Millet, head of European buy-outs, Carlyle Group88: Sanjeev Shah, manager Special Values and Special Situations, Fidelity Investments89: Sushil Wadhwani, Wadhwani Asset Management90: Reade Griffiths, Polygon Investment Partners91: Michael Huttman, chief investment officer, Millennium Global Investments92: William Jackson, managing partner, Bridgepoint Capital93: Richard Pease, head of European equities, New Star94: Massi Khadjenouri, chief investment officer, Cheyne special situations fund95: Luqman Arnold, Corsair Capital96: Paul Marson-Smith, chief executive, Gresham Private Equity 97: David Giampaolo, chief executive, Pi Capital98: Florian Homm, Absolute Capital99: Tom Lamb, UK managing director, Barclays Private Equity100: Peter Webb, chief executive, Unicorn Asset Management

20. LOUIS BACON

51, founder and chairman, Moore Capital

Secretive American hedge fund manager who launched his Moore Global Investments flagship fund in 1990 and has been said to be a more powerful hedge fund manager than George Soros.

He is now based in Mayfair but his previous office in St James is said to have included a squash court of half the standard width, allowing him to practise his line shots.

Bacon hunts and fishes and is a committed devotee of Ernest Hemingway.

Last November, he bought the 171,400-acre Forbes Trinchera Ranch, the largest privately owned ranch in Colorado, which had been owned by the Forbes publishing family for 37 years.

19. SANJAY PATEL

Co-head of Goldman Sachs European private equity and Indian capital equity

Sanjay Patel is in his second spell at Goldman, after leaving the company to work for alternative asset management fund GSC Partners.

He rejoined Goldman in February 2006 and was appointed alongside Hughes Lepic to run Goldman's European private equity business after its former chairman Richard Sharp departed in November 2006.

Patel, whose parents are from Bombay, went to Eton and Harvard before completing an MBA at Stanford University.

 

18. DAVID BLITZER

37, senior managing director, Blackstone Groups

David Blitzer joined Blackstone in 1991 and set up its London operation in 2002.

As a senior managing director alongside Joseph Baratta, he has been involved in high-profile European buyouts of companies, including Spirit Group, publisher Houghton Mifflin and Legoland.

17. HUGH OSMOND

45, chairman Sun Capital Partners

Whether it is pubs or "zombie" funds, Hugh Osmond is a serial entrepreneur turned private equity player.

A former medic, he started out in restaurants, taking over Pizza Express in 1993 with fellow entrepreneur Luke Johnson. He later became one of Britain's biggest pub landlords after three takeovers worth about £3bn.

Floating Punch Taverns, where he was chairman, and selling his stake in Spirit Group brought him £100m.

After the failure of a plan to take over the Six Continents hotels to pubs group, he bounced back with a £1bn takeover of the closed Pearl life funds and then broke up Resolution Group's agreed merger with Friends Provident by successfully bidding for Resolution.

16. JON MOULTON

57, founder and managing partner Alchemy Partners

The deal Jon Moulton is still most famous for is a buyout that he never did.

Accused of being a ruthless asset-stripper when he tried to buy Rover's sports car brand MG in 2000, Moulton lost out to a bid by management for the entire company but says he's still accosted at airports by former Rover workers who tell him they wish he had bought the company.

Moulton studied chemistry at Lancaster University then trained as a chartered accountant and joined Coopers & Lybrand before helping setting up the private equity operation at Schroders in 1985 that became Permira.

 

 

 

He had a brief spell at Apax Partners but left to set up Alchemy in 1997.

One of his best deals was selling home decorating business AG Stanley for £430m a few years after it was bought from Boots for just £2.

Married with two children he has a vineyard in Kent and houses in London and Paris. Has become an unofficial and outspoken spokesman for the private equity industry.

15. MARTIN HALUSA

52, chief executive, Apax Partners

Austrian Martin Halusa succeeded Apax founder Sir Ronnie Cohen as chief executive in January 2004 and since then has been the face of one of Britain's leading private equity firms.

A former consultant at Boston Consulting Group, he then worked for Austrian crystal group Swarovski, joining Apax in 1990 to help found the German business that later produced some of the group's best investments.

Born in Bangkok to a diplomat father, he has a degree from Georgetown University, an MBA from Harvard Business School and an economics PhD in Economics from the University of Innsbruck.

14. MARTIN HUGHES

46, founder and chief executive, Toscafund

Hughes established himself as the premier banking analyst in the City in the 1990s, before becoming deputy chief executive of Credit Lyonnais Laing.

He also worked with hedge fund guru Julian Robertson at Tiger Management but left to set up Toscafund as a global equity hedge fund in 1999.

Toscafund now has assets of $7bn and Hughes demanded radical changes at ABN Amro before the Dutch bank's eventual takeover last year into play. He also backed Virgin's unsuccessful bid for Northern Rock.

Hughes has been nicknamed the "rottweiler" but is also persuasive enough to have been able to attract former Royal Bank of Scotland chairman Sir George Mathewson to his board as chairman.

13. MICHAEL HINTZE

54, chief executive, CQS

 

Michael Hintze is a former Australian army captain who has become one of Britain's leading hedge fund executives, since founding CQS in 2000.

Hintze's grandparents fled Russia for China after the Russian revolution in 1917, while his parents lost everything when Mao came to power in 1949.

They moved to Australia four years later, when Hintze was three months old. A fluent Russian speaker, he started his City career as a graduate trainee fixed income trader with Salomon Brothers, later moving to Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse First Boston.

He holds degrees in electrical engineering, physics, pure mathematics and acoustics, as well as an MBA from Harvard.

Hintze is a prominent supporter of the Conservative Party and a major philanthropist, funding a £1.5m sculpture gallery at the Victoria & Albert Musuem and funded the restoration of Michelangelo frescos in the Vatican.

12. NOAM GOTTESMAN

46, founding partner GLG Partners

One of a number of former Goldman Sachs bankers who have lit up the hedge fund world, Gottesman left the investment bank for Lehman Brothers in 1995, setting up an in-house hedge fund.

The American then left Lehman in 2000 with colleagues Pierre Lagrange and Jonathan Green (who has since left the firm) to set up GLG, named after the first initials of their surnames.

The firm is now one of the world's biggest multi-strategy hedge fund manager, operating 40 funds and managing more than $24bn.

GLG's largest fund, the Emerging Markets Fund, generated a return of more than 50pc last year and it listed on the New York Stock Exchange in November 2007 after reversing into a special purpose acquisition vehicle.

11. PHILIP YEA

53, chief executive, 3i Group

Yea was in such demand in 2004 that he turned down the chief executive's job at British Land to take the same title at 3i Group, where he became the first "outsider" to run the company.

He joined after five years in private equity with Investcorp and quickly showed his independence by changing the co-investment rules for 3i executives – the group was

 

previously different from other private equity firms in that managers were not obliged to put their money into deals.

Yea, a French and Spanish graduate of Brasenose College, Oxford, made his name in the drinks industry where he spent 13 years with Guinness, which merged with Grand Metropolitan while he was finance director to become Diageo.

He left for Investcorp two years later.

He is a non-executive director of Vodafone and a former non-executive at HBOS and Manchester United.

10. NEIL WOODFORD

47, fund manager Invesco Perpetual

Probably Britain's best-regarded fund manager now that Anthony Bolton at Fidelity has moved on to other things.

Woodford manages the Invesco Perpetual High Income Fund, Britain's largest investment fund with more than £6bn under management, and the Inveso Perpetual Income Fund.

After graduating in Economics and Agricultural Economics from Exeter University of Exeter in 1981, he began his career with the Dominion Insurance Company, moving in 1987 to become a fund manager with Eagle Star and then switching to Invesco Perpetual in 1988.

9. JOHN DUFFIELD

68, founder and executive chairman, New Star Asset Management

Colourful and controversial Oxford biochemistry graduate who wanted to prove to Sir Charles Clore he wasn't marrying his daughter Vivien for money.

He founded Jupiter Asset Management in 1985 and built it into one of the UK's most successful retail fund management businesses.

Within 15 years, Jupiter's funds under management grew to £14bn and the company attracted 1m investment accounts but Duffield left in 2000 after a bust-up with Commerzbank, the German bank which had bought Jupiter, crystallising £200m for Duffield, and making more than 150 people at the firm into millionaires.

Duffield got another 100 people into the millionaire's club after founding New Star and floating it four years later.

 

 

He cashed in £155m of shares and dividends from New Star in March 2007.

However, in January this year, New Star issued a profits warning and cut its dividend. Famously drives a Ford Mondeo and does not use a computer.

8. JOHANNES HUTH

47, head of London office, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.

KKR has a list on its website of 11 private equity records it has broken, including that for the largest leveraged buyout in Europe, which was claimed by its £12.4bn takeover of Alliance Boots last year.

That and many other transactions fall under the jurisdiction of Johannes Huth, the KKR partner responsible for its European operations.

Huth joined KKR in 1999 after working for Salomon Brothers and InvestCorp.

He raised eyebrows in 2006 when KKR listed a fund on the Euronext stock market in Amsterdam, giving it a permanent source of capital.

A German national, he is fluent in four languages and represents the London office on KKR's investment and portfolio management committees.

7. STANLEY FINK

49, deputy chairman, Man Group

Regarded as the godfather of London's hedge fund community, Stanley Fink is the unassuming son of a Manchester lampshade-maker who became chief executive at Man in 2000 after successfully floating the former sugar trader while finance director.

He increased assets more than ten-fold during his tenure, making Man Group by far the world's largest hedge fund manager.

Fink gave the financial world a scare when he underwent an operation to remove a benign brain tumour in 2004 but regained full health and returned to work after three months before becoming non-executive deputy chairman in March 2007.

His charitable interests include being a Trustee of ARK (Absolute Return for Kids) and President of the Evelina Children's Hospital Appeal Committee.

 

 

He lists his main luxury as ownership of a Swiss hotel.

6. ALAN HOWARD

44, founder and director, Brevan Howard

Howard was reputed to have made $100m a year for Salomon Brothers by trading government bonds in the early 1990s.

A former global head of proprietary trading of the fixed income division at Credit Suisse, Howard then tapped into a network of former colleagues to help set up Brevan Howard, launching its fixed income-focused hedge fund in April 2003 with $870m of assets and building it into one of the ten largest hedge funds in Europe.

5. JOHN STUDZINSKI

51, senior managing director, The Blackstone Group

Renowned for his prowess as an investment banker and one of the best City's networkers, Studzinski's stunned the City by switching from HSBC's top investment banking job into private equity.

Born in Massachusetts and a holder of both US and UK citizenships, this 22-year veteran of Morgan Stanley was instrumental in building HSBC's investment banking franchise.

Outside the M&A and financing work for which he is renowned, Studzinski is a founding member and trustee of the Passage Day Centre for homeless people in Westminster.

He was made a Knight of the Order of St. Gregory by Pope John Paul II for his humanitarian work for the homeless.

4. NIGEL DOUGHTY

50, chairman, Doughty Hanson

Newark-born Nigel Doughty completed an MBA from Cranfield School of Management in 1984 and got together with Richard Hanson to form private equity fund manager Doughty Hanson & Co.

The firm has since made more than 100 investments worth more than Eu23bn and become one of Europe's leading private equity fund managers, buying and selling companies including Dunlop Standard Aerospace, Tag Heuer, Umbro and bakers RHM.

 

 

Doughty is the owner and chairman of Nottingham Forest football club and is giving £250,000 a year for at least five years to Cranfield, the largest donation in the school's history, to fund the creation of the Cranfield Centre for Corporate Responsibility and a Doughty chair in corporate responsibility.

3. GUY HANDS

48, chief executive, Terra Firma Capital

A former head of Eurobond trading at Goldman Sachs, Hands' latest private equity deal has made him the least likely record company boss in the industry's history.

Having splurged £3.2bn last summer on EMI, the Terra Firma boss, more used to running pubs and motorway service stations, is on a steep learning curve.

He recently admitted that his takeover of the company had not gone to plan and had taken a far greater emotional strain than he had expected - which is little surprise, given that he faced opposition from artists including Robbie Williams and Radiohead, who defected ahead of their 2007 album, In Rainbows.

Hands has a reputation as one of the City's most innovative bankers, having founded Terra Firma in a 2002 spin-off of the principal finance group of Japanese bank Nomura International.

Now independent of Nomura, Terra Firma owns the biggest portfolio of private housing in Germany as well as the Thresher chain of wine shops.

Educated at Ravenscroft School, Beckington, The Judd School, Tonbridge, and Mansfield College, Oxford, Hands lives in Sevenoaks, Kent with his wife Julia, with whom he owns the Hand Picked Hotels chain of 14 country house properties.

They have four children. He is a keen singer and karaoke fan.

2. CHRISTOPHER HOHN

41, managing partner, The Children's Investment Fund

Hedge fund manager Christopher Hohn's successful campaign against former Deutsche Börse head Werner Seifert underlined his status as one of the City's top powers.

After defeating Seifert's plan to take over the London Stock Exchange, Hohn ousted the German stock exchange boss.

 

 

His attempts to force a merger between Deutsche and Euronext failed but he later put Dutch bank ABN Amro into play after amassing a small stake.

Formerly a fund manager at Perry Capital on Wall Street, Hohn has built TCI into a hedge fund whose performance and influence belies its size, attracting investors including Lord Rothschild.

Hohn is also a major philanthropist, donating 0.5pc of CIF's assets under management to a charitable foundation run by his wife.

1. DAMON BUFFINI

45, chairman, Permira

This son of an American serviceman and a Leicester hotel worker is arguably Britain's most powerful black man, directing one of the country's top private equity groups.

He has led the growth of the former Schroder Ventures and taken a major role in defending private equity's record on jobs and investment.

A Cambridge law graduate, he was a management consultant before joining Schroder Ventures, becoming a partner in 1992 and UK managing partner in 1999.

In 2000, he moved up to Permira managing partner and oversaw the separation from Schroders in 2001.

His deal-making skills have helped Permira to buy companies ranging from the AA to fashion group New Look and hotels chain Travelodge.

Married to Deborah, a Chinese solicitor, he lists golf as a hobby.

Works with underprivileged children in poor parts of London.