London | Hedge fund billionaire and philanthropist Sir Michael Hintze will become one of the very few Australians ever to gain a seat in the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Britain’s parliament.
The London-based AFR Rich Lister will become Lord Hintze after the King approved a recommendation from former prime minister Boris Johnson to give the 69-year-old a peerage.
Like most of the 800 or so members of the House of Lords, his peerage is a lifetime award and is not hereditary.
It entitles him to take part in debates on legislation, sit on committees, use the Lords’ library and dining rooms, and potentially even become a government minister.
Not all peers opt to affiliate to a political party when they join the Lords. But Sir Michael has been a high-profile donor to the Conservative Party, reportedly giving more than £4 million ($7.2 million) over the years.
The founder of the hedge fund CQS, Sir Michael sits at 52nd on the AFR Rich List with a fortune estimated at $2.2 billion, which includes substantial agricultural holdings in Australia.
The government statement announcing his peerage cited him as a “businessman, founder of the Hintze Family Charitable Foundation and trustee of the National Gallery”.
His patronage is highly visible in London. He has a hall named after him at the Natural History Museum, following a £5 million donation that was the largest the 141-year-old institution has ever received. He has supported most of city’s major art institutions and museums, several theatres, as well as universities in Britain and Australia.
He has also reportedly backed a think tank that sought to challenge the science and economics of climate change, leading to oft-circulated accusations that he is a climate sceptic.
He rarely gives media interviews, but rejects this claim. “Sir Michael is not a climate change denier and never has been,” a spokesman told The Australian Financial Review.
“He understands that man-made activity affects the environment and the climate. He strongly believes that we need to focus on transition to the new order.”
Sir Michael was born in 1950s pre-communist China to Russian refugee parents. After Mao Zedong came to power, the family moved to Sydney where he gained degrees in physics and engineering.
He joined the army, but after three years left for New York and a career in finance spanning Salomon Brothers, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse First Boston. He moved to London in the 1980s and founded CQS in 1999.