Hedge fund goes climate radical

Activism: An Extinction Rebellion protest against air pollution in London last year. TCI Fund Management donates big to the movement. — Reuters

LONDON: The hedge fund industry’s British billionaire Chris Hohn is bringing his hardball tactics to the fight against global warming.

The money manager of last year’s best-performing large hedge fund TCI Fund Management, with US$30bil in assets, is pushing portfolio companies to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and disclose their carbon footprint. If they don’t, he said he’d oust their boards or dump their shares.

Just in case anyone doubts his commitment, last fall Hohn and his charity donated £200,000 (US$260,000) to Extinction Rebellion, the radical climate change movement whose members have blocked traffic in London and glued themselves to jetliners.

For Hohn, 53, a cerebral and deeply private financier who’s worth US$2bil, his campaign is just a first step in shaking up an asset management industry, he said, that has ignored a planetary crisis.