Hedge fund tycoon who paid £330million in tax last year quits UK amid exodus of wealthy under Labour
The billionaire, whose estimated net worth is thought to be around £3 billion, has announced his move to Europe
A successful hedge fund tycoon who paid around £330million in tax last year has revealed his decision to leave the UK as part of a growing wave of departing billionaires.
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Christopher Rokos, founder of investment firm Rokos Capital Management, is Britain’s third-biggest taxpayer, with his annual contribution to the UK economy equivalent to the 15,000 newly qualified social care workers.
The billionaire, whose estimated net worth is thought to be around £3 billion, has announced his move to Europe, with the tycoon moving his residency to Greece and opening an office in Athens.
Mr Rokos forms part of an exodus of wealthy entrepreneurs and investors under Labour, amid an ongoing fear of tax rises for the uber-wealthy.
The tycoon, who donated £190 million to Cambridge University earlier this year, reportedly cited reasons including non-domiciled resident payments, inheritance tax concerns and private school fees.
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Mr Rokos departure, as reported by Bloomberg, sees the billionaire join a growing list of billionaires moving abroad under Labour, joining shipping tycoon John Fredriksen and steel baron Lakshmi Mittal.
The hedge fund tycoon, who paid himself £477 million last year, saw his $22 billion macro hedge fund thrive in the midst of a volatile period for global markets.
The move is likely to mark an embarrassing blow for Chancellor John Healey, following his forthcoming Budget next month, after insisting he wanted 'Growth Britain'.
It follows pushback surrounding claims of a mass exodus of millionaires from the UK, with Henley Private Wealth Migration, the source of many of the claims, initially reporting a “great wealth flight”.
However, recent months have seen that outlook revised to “modest”, with the firm having dropped the report's sole author and announced it will no longer be “producing a precise count of movements that the data does not yet support”.
It comes after tax campaigners exposed several problems with the report’s methodology, after it initially claimed a figure of 142,000 migrating millionaires globally as part of its latest edition.
Acknowledging the U-turn, subsequent studies have confirmed that “departure rates among high earners were modest and concentrated in specific circumstances”.
This comes despite a growing group of British millionaires, dubbed Patriotic Millionaires UK, insisting they are willing to pay more tax and are set to remain in the country.