(The following story by James Mackintosh appeared on the Financial Times website on March 23, 2009.)
LONDON — The last founding partner of The Children’s Investment Fund still working with Chris Hohn, manager of the $9.5bn London hedge fund, has left.
Snehal Amin, an American analyst involved in the recent campaign against CSX, a US railway, left earlier this month, shortly after James Wilk, operations manager, who had been in the post for just 10 months.
The exits come after the fund’s worst year since it was created in 2004, with losses of more than 40 per cent, defeat in a battle with the Japanese government and a stinging rebuke from a US judge over the CSX fight.
Even so, TCI remains one of the most closely followed London hedge funds, thanks to Mr Hohn’s stellar record.
The fund was hit by the exit due to illness at the start of this year of Patrick Degorce, another of the six partners who joined Mr Hohn at the fund’s launch in 2004. Mr Degorce, TCI’s banks analyst, was closely involved in TCI’s high-profile campaign against Deutsche Börse and its successful battle to force ABN Amro to sell itself.
TCI retains 10 analysts, with Mr Degorce replaced by John Sheridan.
Mr Hohn has a reputation as a challenging person to work with. Former TCI staffers described him as “difficult”, at best, with several saying they left because they could no longer face working with him.
Werner Seifert, ousted as Deutsche Börse chief executive by TCI in its first high-profile activist campaign, hit back three years ago with a book attacking Mr Hohn, TCI and its hedge fund allies. Mr Seifert, though, said Mr Hohn did not have the expensive lifestyle of many hedge fund managers. “If one were to give him Gummi Bears instead of money, he would probably be happy,” he wrote.
Mr Hohn, who declined to comment, donates his fund income to a linked charity run by his wife, Jamie Cooper-Hohn. He is one of Britain’s biggest philanthropists, with the charity raking in more than $1bn since the fund was set up.
Mr Amin, who friends said was planning to return to the US to set up a new fund next year, said he could not comment for contractual reasons. Mr Wilk could not be contacted.