Morning Coffee: The billionaire hedge fund manager whose wife disagreed with self-enrichment. The redemption of Morgan Stanley's tech team
We have written about Chris Hohn before. When we wrote about him last year, he was saying, "The most important thing is consciousness and love," and, "Whether you go the easy way or the hard way through suffering, you eventually come to learn that the spiritual world is not just real, but it's the whole thing."
Six months later, 59-year-old Hohn has been saying similar things to the Financial Times. The Financial Times suggests that Hohn might be Britain's Warren Buffett. Hohn is not only the UK's most successful hedge fund manager, but he runs the fifth most profitable hedge fund of all time.
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Hohn manages $77bn of assets under management using only himself and six or so 'elite analysts.' He holds 15 positions in companies with strong competitive advantages. He likes hard assets and infrastructure. Specifically: “Railroads, toll roads, airports, cell phone towers.”
Hohn is very rich and is worth nearly $14bn. In the words of a former employee speaking to the FT, he can be "completely insatiable", single-minded, and "bruising." He doesn't mind offending people and he is direct. This is par for the course among hedge fund moguls, but as he approaches his seventh decade, Hohn is also increasingly a proselytiser for the non-material world.
“Close your eyes, and in the darkness you can know God and God is consciousness,” he tells the FT. Consider the difference between “someone who is alive and someone who is dead”, he instructs the journalist. Then he hangs up the phone.
Hohn's women seem to have influenced him. His first wife disagreed with self-enrichment and was reportedly 'put off' by his aspirations to make a fortune. She was won over when Hohn said he wanted to use his fortune to alleviate suffering, and received £337m when their marriage ended 12 years ago. Hohn's second wife asked him to read up on consciousness and has fuelled Hohn's spirituality. Hohn is certain he knew her in another existence.
Hohn's relationships have also brought him pain. He tells the FT that his divorce was a 'dark night of the soul,' and reflects that: “Evolution occurs out of suffering.”
Hohn has donated £1.4bn ($1.9bn) to charitable causes. He said last year that he's just a custodian of his wealth: "It's money that isn't mine. It's to be given away in service to humanity." When he invests, Hohn says it's on the basis of both analysis and intuition, and that intuition is "the intelligence of the soul." This year, his Children's Investment Fund was down 4% through to the end of April, but Hohn points to times past when it fell 50% before tripling in value. If this happens, he will give more money away. Hon says his intuition tells him: "my purpose here [is] to help people." It helps that his wives say this too.
Separately, when we observed earlier this week that Michael Grimes at Morgan Stanley seemed to have been overlooked in the SpaceX IPO and that Kim Posnett at Goldman Sachs seemed to be the star attraction, we were not in possession of all the facts.
Firstly, it seems that Goldman's lead position on the IPO wasn't just Posnett's doing. Secondly, it seems that Morgan Stanley's role might be bigger than it seems.
Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon helped persuade Musk to choose Goldman by 'sliding' into his DMs on X. It is not clear what Solomon said there. If Musk had paid proper attention he might have noticed that Solomon doesn't really use his X account in normal times and has never posted anything. He does, however, follow Musk.
Nor was Goldman's success just Solomon's doing. The Financial Times reports that David Ludwig, Dan Dees and Susie Scher were also instrumental in Goldman's glory. Several of the Goldman team were reportedly seen in SpaceX's offices on a daily basis during the run up to the IPO announcement.
Grimes, however, was reportedly not seen in SpaceX's offices. Maybe Grimes was busy elsewhere. Although Goldman achieved the very prestigious "lead left" role on the SpaceX IPO, the FT notes that Morgan Stanley has the “stabilisation” mandate, which means it will support SpaceX’s shares during volatility immediately after the IPO. This could be more lucrative, someone tells the FT. Someone else tells the FT that Goldman was only listed before Morgan Stanley because it comes first in the alphabet. No hard feelings.
Meanwhile...
OpenAI has been working with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley on an IPO worth over $1 trillion. (FT)
Wally Cheng, head of global technology M&A at Morgan Stanley is feeling excited. He says “I think the deal activity is going to span the full spectrum — private and public.” (Bloomberg)
Another Citi banker left. Ed Wehle joined in 2023 and has left for Jefferies, where he will be as global head of technology services investment banking. (Bloomberg)
Apollo and KKR have been trading in and out of private credit loans. (Bloomberg)
Quant hedge fund QRT's flagship fund manages around $10bn of AUM and has generated annualized returns of around 30% since its inception in 2018. Headcount there has grown from 600 in early 2023 to 1,100 by mid 2024, 1,400 by March 2025 and 2,000 now. (RupakGhose)
Brevan Howard was up 3.7% through to May 15th. This was partly thanks to its star trader Fash Golchin and to its strategist Abhijit Chakrabortti who have been placing increasingly large bets on equity markets. (Bloomberg)
Investec is expanding into the UK's private banking market. Maybe it will need some private bankers. (FT)
"AI isn’t coming for builders or sellers, but it is coming for measurers. Tireless, independent, efficient and available." It is also coming for middle managers and for marketing (which is full of measurers). (WSJ)
AI is replacing executive assistants and recruiters. (Bloomberg)
Reid Hoffman has got digital twin, Reid AI, which he uses for public appearances and media interviews. The system—trained on 22 years of Hoffman’s books, speeches, podcasts and articles—has delivered more than 75 addresses and presentations since its 2024 launch. (A human helped prepare them, though.) (WSJ)
How to behave when you buy your child a house. Set a spending limit of $700,000 and insist that they live no more than two miles away. (WSJ)
Photo: By Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
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