The quiet London hedge fund breaking profit records paid $10m on average to its top people
Unexpectedly, the top performing hedge fund in 2025 wasn't Citadel, Balyasny or even Bridgewater. Instead, it was London hedge fund TCI Capital, once home to former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, which made $18.9bn last year. The Financial Times points out that this was the largest yearly gain ever for a hedge fund. The individuals behind the success seem to have received commensurate gains themselves.
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According to Companies House accounts for 'TCI Holdings Limited' for the year ending March 2025, the fund paid 16 key management personnel an average of $10.17m (£7.6m). Those 16 are defined as 'equity partners of the limited liability partnership subsidiaries of the group.' The accounts only factor in three months of last year, which means that TCI's partners may well have earned even more than that on average for 2025 as a whole.
Only around half of TCI's partner are actual portfolio managers, though. Chris Hohn, who runs TCI, said on a podcast late last year that he only has 7-8 portfolio managers alongside a larger back office. TCI Holdings' accounts suggest the fund has a headcount of 50, but TCI has many different entities that obfuscate exact headcount figures.
TCI trades equities, but doesn't need an army of PMs because it is interested in a very specific type of company. Hohn said he invests in "hard assets and infrastructure", with a particular affinity for aircraft engine manufacturers. The FT reported that Hohn likes to invest in companies that operate natural monopolies,
Who are some of TCI's partners? At 'TCI Advisory Services LLP', there are five partners, including Alex Baring, who joined the fund from JPMorgan Cazenove in 2006. Max Schroeder, another partner in that entity, joined the fund in 2017 after two years as a graduate at private equity firm Blackstone. Jon Amouyal, a partner who joined the fund in 2012, was previously an executive director at Goldman Sachs Investment Partners in London.
'TCI Fund Services LLP', meanwhile, has eight partners, most of whom have been there for almost 20 years. The most recently appointed partners were Hal Livingstone, the firm's legal counsel, and CTO Bradd Bentley, who joined in 2014 and 2016, respectively.
A common thread among partners is that they joined TCI earlier in their careers, often coming in as partners. Baring, for example, was hired as a partner aged just 27. Rishi Sunak joined as a partner aged 26. Tobias Brickel, the most recently appointed partner, joined the fund in 2019 just three years after graduating a masters, and was made partner the following year.
Hohn, presumably one of TCI's key management members, doesn't spend his money lavishly. He said in the podcast that he "[doesn't] actually own anything" and gives his money away "in service of humanity."
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