Hedge fund boss Chris Hohn gives away £1bn in five years

Chris Hohn, one of London's best known hedge fund managers, generated £42.7m for charity last year taking his total donations to almost £1bn in just five years.

Chris Hohn has run The Children's Investment Fund since 2003 Credit: Photo: SARAH BROOK

The boss of The Children's Investment Fund (TCI) donated £26.4m of his hedge fund's profits and helped generate another £16.3m in investment income for the Children's Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) in the year to August 2010, according to accounts filed this week at the Charity Commission.

The filing show that the CIFF, which is funded by Mr Hohn's hedge fund profits, has received a total of £956m since August 2006.

The amount dwarfs other notable donations and makes Mr Hohn and his wife Jamie Cooper Hohn, who runs the foundation, among Britain's leading philanthropists.

Sir Tom Hunter, the Scottish billionaire, has promised to give £1bn to charity, but that was spread over his lifetime. Last year Anurag Dikshit and the Sainsbury family were Britain's biggest donors, giving away over £100m each.

Mr Hohn, 44, set up TCI in 2003 with the aim of giving some of its profits, after salaries and costs, to CIFF. Originally the couple planned to give £5m a year to the foundation but the donations soared with TCI's success.

The hedge fund manager became notorious for being aggressive with company directors in the years leading up to the crisis.

In 2008 the TCI donated £499m to CIFF. That year TCI fought several high-profile battles, including triggering the sale of ABN Amro which was later bought by Royal Bank of Scotland.

TCI was among the hedge fund branded as "locusts" in Germany due to their role in frustrating the ambitions of Deutsche Borse.

In the past two years, the fund's contributions have dropped due to a fall in performance at TCI.