Crispin Odey

Robin Crispin William Odey (born January 1959)[2][3] is a London-based hedge fund manager and the founding partner of Odey Asset Management. In April 2011 the firm had $6.5 to $7 billion under management, with Odey personally running $4 billion of assets.[4] According to Bloomberg in November 2017, he is "known for his bearish outlook" on the markets.[5]

Crispin Odey
Born
Robin Crispin William Odey

January 1959 (age 61)
Yorkshire, England
NationalityBritish
Alma materChrist Church, Oxford
OccupationInvestor, fund manager
Known forOdey Asset Management
Net worth GB£775 million
(Sunday Times Rich List 2019)
Spouse(s)
​
(
m. 1985; div. 1986)

(
m. 1991)
[1]
Children3
RelativesGeorge Odey (grandfather)
Websitehttps://www.odey.com/

According to The Sunday Times Rich List in 2019, Odey and his wife Nichola Pease are worth £775 million.[6]

Early life and education

Odey was born in East Yorkshire, the only son of (George) Richard Odey.[7] His father was from a family of Yorkshire industrialists, and his grandfather George Odey, "a formidable bully", had been the Conservative MP for Beverley.[8] His mother was from the Clitherow family.[8] In 1980, his sister Caroline married Hon. Henry David Montgomery (heir apparent to the viscountcy), the son of David Montgomery, 2nd Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, and they have three children.[9]

He was educated at Harrow School, where his father had been head boy, and graduated from Christ Church, Oxford in 1980 with a degree in history and economics.[10][11] Soon after graduation, he found out that his father had huge debts, and the trustees made him responsible for Hotham Hall, a 4,000-acre estate that had been in his mother's family since 1720.[8] Aged 23, he sold everything.[8] According to Odey, his father was a "wastrel from beginning to end", and survived on handouts from his son.[8]

Career

Early funds

After university he qualified as a barrister but instead of taking up a legal career, he joined Framlington fund managers, then leaving to work for Barings International, where he managed the Baring European Growth Trust. He ran continental European pension funds at Framlington and Barings.[2][4][12]

1991-2015: Odey Asset Management founding

Odey founded Odey Asset Management in 1991.[12] George Soros was one of the original investors, seeding Odey $150 million.[4] Odey suffered large losses in 1994 when the Federal Reserve unexpectedly lifted interest rates (one of his funds lost 44 per cent of its value), but went on to thrive, for instance by foreseeing that the value of insurers would rise after the September 11 attacks on New York in 2001.[4][13] Through the early part of the 2000s, Odey worked closely with Hugh Hendry, whom he had recruited and who ran Odey's top performing Continental Europe Fund. Hendry left in 2005 to establish Eclectica Asset Management. In reference to Hendry, Odey himself said: "Odey in the 1990s was a one-man band; Odey in the 2000s was a two-man band".[4]

According to The New York Times, Odey "came to prominence during the 2008 financial crisis when he shorted banking shares, a lucrative wager that helped him to earn almost 28 million pounds that year".[14] Odey came to wide attention in 2008 when he paid himself £28 million after successfully anticipating the credit crunch.[13] That year his return was 54.8 per cent.[4] He had been bearish about the position of banks for a number of years, shorting Bradford & Bingley as early as 2005, questioning the German landesbanks and warning consistently about the dangers of debt and inflated house prices. He continued his short positions into early 2009 but in April took longer positions as he predicted the market rally of that year.[2] The Times newspaper selected Odey as a "Business Big Shot" in 2008.[15]

In May 2009, Odey attracted some controversy for saying in The Times that he would leave the country to avoid paying 50% income tax.[16] He was at the centre of further controversy in 2009 when it was suggested that he financially backed anti-EU campaigners in the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty[17] while some hedge funds had taken out specific bets on the insolvency of the country in the event that the vote not be carried.[18] The Treaty passed by a margin of 67.1 per cent to 32.9 per cent.[19] In faxes sent to RTÉ and TV3, Odey denied that he had funded the Libertas 'no' campaign.[20]

In May 2010, Odey Asset Management formed a new investment management firm with Geneva’s Bruellan Wealth Management called Odey Bruellan.[21] Odey Asset Management's Odey European Inc. fund was ranked No. 5 on Bloomberg's 2012 list of the 100 Top-Performing Large Hedge Funds.[22]

2016-2018: Recent career

In 2016, it was reported that Odey saw his personal fortune plummet by £200 million after profits at Odey Asset Management suffered a significant decline. His salary was slashed because profits were down nearly 45% from the previous year.[23][24] In 2016, Odey was a "prominent" backer of Brexit,[25] arguing it would allow the UK to govern itself.[26] Later that year, his hedge fund won about 15% of its value following the results of the Brexit referendum.[27] He told the BBC on the morning of the result that he had made £220 million speculating that the markets would fall, saying "‘Il mattino ha l'oro in bocca’ – the morning has gold in its mouth". [28] Overall, his flagship fund made losses of almost 50 percent in 2016, and in 2016, and the firm's operating profits dropped from 44.3 million pounds to 18.6 million pounds.[14]

In June 2017, The Daily Telegraph reported that his fund had profited from the drop in the value of the pound that resulted from a hung parliament.[26] In August 2017, he remained an investor in Sky.[29] After initially backing the Fox bid for Sky, in November 2017, he opposed the bid, after Sky's financial results proved "better than people forecast."[30]

Assets under management at the fund dropped from $11.7 billion at the start of 2015, to $5.5 billion in September 2017.[31] Also, funds in his flagship fund, Odey European, fell from €2.5 billion at the start of 2015 to €184 million.[25] The Financial Times chalked the losses in part to "poorly timed" trades.[25] On 5 January 2018, The New York Times reported that Odey Asset Management had lost more than a fifth of its value in 2017, dropping around 20.5 percent. The New York Times reported that Odey's fund's "performance has suffered heavily after he took a negative stance on the outlook for the global economy and bearish positions against shares that have not borne fruit".[14] He had also made "bets against the Fed", explaining to his clients that "it would certainly be simpler to follow the market. But then we would be ignoring the fundamental data". He had also assumed there would be a crash resulting from high interest rates.[32]

In February 2019, less than two months before the then Brexit date, Odey again bet against the pound.[33]

Personal life

Odey was briefly married to Rupert Murdoch's eldest daughter, Prudence, although the pair quickly separated.[34] The marriage lasted 15 months.

He subsequently married Nichola Pease, deputy chairman of JO Hambro Capital Management and a member of one of the founding families of Barclays Bank.[2][13][35] Nichola is younger daughter of Sir Richard Pease, 3rd Baronet, and a sister of Carolyn Varley (wife of John Varley) and Richard Pease, a funds manager.[36] He had no children by his first wife, and three children, two sons and one daughter, by his second wife.[37]

Charge following complaint

In a statement on 31 July 2020 the Crown Prosecution Service said Odey had been charged with indecent assault following a complaint by a woman over an incident in 1998. He is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on September 28.[38]

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See also

References
  1. http://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/dec/07/banking-newstarassetmanagementgroup
  2. O'Hannelly, Padraig. "Investment Greats: Crispin Odey", Motley Fool, 2 October 2009. Retrieved 13 June 2012.
  3. "Robin Crispin William ODEY - Personal Appointments (free information from Companies House)". Beta.companieshouse.gov.uk. Retrieved 20 June 2017.
  4. Blackhurst, Chris (1 April 2011). "The MT Interview: Crispin Odey of Odey Asset Management". Management Today. Retrieved 13 June 2012.
  5. Kumar, Nishant (1 October 2017). "Odey Sees 'Terrifying' Mix in MiFID, Tapering, Asset Values". Bloomberg. New York. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
  6. Times, The Sunday (12 May 2019). "Rich List 2019: profiles 152-200, featuring JK Rowling, Philip Green and Paul McCartney". ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
  7. "Preview 0008310 - Murdochs Daughter Weds Newspaper proprietor Rupert Murdoch with his daughter Prudence 26 and his new son in law Crispin Odey when the couple married today at St Michaels Church in Chester Square London Mr Odey the only son of Mr & Mrs Richard Odey of Hotham Hall Yorkshire is an insurance broker - 24th May 1985". Topfoto. Archived from the original on 12 March 2018. Retrieved 20 June 2017.
  8. Edwardes, Charlotte (20 November 2012). "Crispin Odey: David Cameron is not a leader, doesn't understand power and doesn't use it". London Evening Standard. Retrieved 20 June 2017.
  9. "Montgomery of Alamein, Viscount (UK, 1946)". Cracroftspeerage.co.uk. Retrieved 20 June 2017.
  10. "Our People". Odey. Archived from the original on 19 March 2014. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
  11. "Middle Temple". www.middletemple.org.uk. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
  12. "Manager Factsheet: Crispin Odey", Trustnet. Retrieved 13 June 2012.
  13. Teather, David (4 August 2008). "Crispin Odey: Hedge fund manager pays himself £28m after thriving during credit crunch", The Guardian. London. Retrieved 13 June 2012.
  14. Martin, Ben; Weir, Keith (5 January 2018). "Odey Hedge Fund Lost More Than a Fifth of Value in 2017". The New York Times. Reuters. Retrieved 6 January 2017.
  15. Gray, Sadie. "Business movers and shakers". The Times. London. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
  16. Gray, Sadie. "Banking and finance". The Times. London. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
  17. Molloy, Thomas (29 September 2009). "Odey one of the most successful financiers in UK". Irish Independent. Dublin. Retrieved 13 June 2012.
  18. "Funding allegations dominate Lisbon debate". The Irish Times. Dublin. 29 September 2009.
  19. "Taoiseach welcomes 'decisive step'". RTÉ News. 3 October 2009. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
  20. "Odey denies funding Ganley no campaign", politics.ie, 30 September 2009. Retrieved 13 June 2012.
  21. Giles, Warren (10 May 2010). "Odey Forms Joint-Venture Firm With Geneva's Bruellan". Bloomberg. New York. Retrieved 8 January 2017.
  22. "Bloomberg - Are you a robot?". www.bloomberg.com.
  23. "Hedge fund manager goes from billionaire to millionaire in profits plunge". The Guardian. London. Press Association. 22 April 2016. Retrieved 20 June 2017.
  24. Bow, Michael (22 April 2016). "Crispin Odey warns of banking crisis as profits nosedive". London Evening Standard. Retrieved 20 June 2017.
  25. Johnson, Miles (24 October 2017). "Poorly timed trades crush fund assets managed by Crispin Odey". Financial Times. London. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
  26. Martin, Ben (9 June 2017). "Crispin Odey's hedge fund profits from pound's election slide". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
  27. Wainewright, Will. "Crispin Odey’s Main Hedge Fund Said to Gain 15% on Brexit Vote", Bloomberg. New York. 24 June 2016. Accessed 24 August 2016.
  28. The Independent 23 September 2016
  29. Elder, Bryce (11 August 2017). "Crispin Odey digs in over his Sky stake as Murdoch circles". Financial Times. London. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
  30. Martin, Ben (7 November 2017). "Sky investor Crispin Odey opposes Fox bid as Disney talks fuel uncertainty". The Globe and Mail. Toronto. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
  31. Williams-Grut, Oscar (1 November 2017). "Top hedge fund manager Crispin Odey: Markets are 'starting to go hyperbolic'". Business Insider. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
  32. Baker, Phillip (27 October 2017). "The big mistake Crispin Odey made fighting the Fed". The Australian Financial Review. Melbourne.
  33. "Bloomberg - Are you a robot?". www.bloomberg.com.
  34. Wolff, Michael. "The Secrets of His Succession", Vanity Fair, December 2008. Retrieved 13 June 2012.
  35. "The Tatler List: Crispin Odey" Archived 4 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine, The Tatler. Retrieved 13 June 2012.
  36. Darryl Landy. Sir Richard Thorn Pease, 3rd Bt. Retrieved 9 January 2013
  37. Darryl Landy. Nichola Pease. Retrieved 9 January 2013
  38. "Hedge fund manager Crispin Odey charged with indecent assault". Financial Times. Retrieved 1 August 2020.
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