He’s head of one of the biggest hedge funds in Europe, a major contributor to the official Vote Leave campaign, and – along with Crispin Odey – one of the largest beneficiaries of the post-Brexit chaos: but Sir Paul Marshall is more than that.
A co-founder and director of asset management firm Marshall Wace, Marshall was also instrumental in triggering the shock vote of the 2016 referendum.
Unlike his co-founder, Ian Wace, who donated to the ‘Better In’ campaign, Marshall had a strategic role in persuading the then Justice Minister, Michael Gove, to betray his long-term friend David Cameron and lead the official campaign to leave the European Union.
According to the Sunday Times’ chief political editor Tim Shipman, in his book, All Out War, Gove “finally made up his mind to back Brexit on Thursday, 18 February, after calling Paul Marshall, a hedge fund manager he had got to know through his chairmanship of the Ark chain of academy schools”.
With so many investors both bankrolling Leave campaigning and cashing in on the referendum result, this is particularly true of Brexit.
Shipman not only writes for Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday newspaper, but his book was also published by Murdoch’s publishing arm, Harper Collins. Meanwhile, Michael Gove is a regular Times columnist and
Of all the political decisions around the EU referendum, Paul Marshall’s impact on Gove is one of the most precipitate and important. Gove’s defection to Vote Leave persuaded his old Oxford University college friend, Boris Johnson, to join him.
Marshall went on to be a major donor to, and a major beneficiary of, the cataclysmic victory of the Gove and Johnson campaign.
The Great Brexit Short
Before founding Marshall Wace in 1997, Sir Paul Marshall was a director of the giant Blackrock company, which has now nearly $6 trillion dollars of assets under management.
He soon became director of the Hedge Fund Standards Board in 2008 and was joined by another hedge fund giant, Sir Michael Hintze.
Like Crispin Odey, both Marshall and Hintze donated to Gove’s Vote Leave campaign – £100,000 each, according to the Electoral Commission.
Marshall boosted Gove in the The Times and funded his short-lived campaign.
Like Crispin Odey, both used their hedge funds to ‘short’ on the result of the Brexit referendum. According to the Financial Times – “Hedge funds win big from Brexit bets” – Marshall Wace was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Brexit market chaos.
Soon after Brexit, Marshall wrote in the Financial Times about how British trade would benefit by leaving the EU. He then became a commentator on Brexit Central and helped fund the controversial Legatum Institute. Marshall also bankrolled the
Orange Book Lib Dem
Before his role in Brexit, Sir Paul Mars