One of Britain’s top City financiers is understood to have joined the exodus of billionaires seeking residency in lower-tax countries. Alan Howard, co-founder of the hedge fund group Brevan Howard Asset Management, has surfaced as a resident of Switzerland.
Howard is seen as one of Britain’s most successful investors and was ranked 71st in the latest Sunday Times Rich List, with a fortune of about £2.5 billion. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index his net worth is $4.3 billion.
Howard, 62, lived in Geneva for seven years until 2017, returning to the UK for personal reasons, and has now gone back to Switzerland, according to Bloomberg, which cited UK registry filings. It reported last year that he was exploring a move out of the UK.
Other wealthy business figures to decamp in recent times include Ian and Richard Livingstone, the property investors, who now live in Monaco, and the private equity tycoon Jeremy Coller, who moved to Switzerland last year.
Nik Storonsky, the co-founder of Revolut, the digital banking app, has left for the United Arab Emirates, a recent filing revealed. Lakshmi Mittal, the steel mogul with an estimated £15.4 billion, is also understood to be leaving the UK after 30 years, dividing his time between Switzerland and Dubai.
Britain is losing millionaires and billionaires faster than any other country in the world, according to analysis by Henley & Partners, a British investment migration consultancy. Last year Britain lost a net 10,800 millionaires and this year it is estimated that 16,500 millionaires will have left.
Growing unease about the tax treatment of the rich has led to some of the departures, according to wealth management advisers. Reforms to inheritance tax, capital gains tax and the recent move in the budget to introduce a mansion tax on properties worth more than £2 million have all soured sentiment about the UK as a favourable place to live. The dismantling of the non-domicile regime has spurred many of the departures.
Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Milan, Monaco and Switzerland are all seen as beneficiaries, offering lower or zero income tax and inheritance tax rates and other tax concessions, and more sunshine.
Peter Kyle, the business secretary, admitted last month that government polices were responsible for some of the departures. “Some of the decisions” the Labour Party had made since taking office had caused “some people [to] feel the need to leave”, he said. The government has repeatedly said it expects those “with the broadest shoulders” to pay more.
Howard is the majority owner of Brevan Howard, which employs 1,050 people in nine jurisdictions, investing about $34 billion for clients across bonds, currencies, commodities and cryptocurrencies. He founded the firm in London in 2002 and “remains involved in high-level strategy”, according to colleagues. The chief executive since 2019 has been Aron Landy.
Howard has been a major donor to the Conservative Party, giving more than £1.5 million since 2020, according to Electoral Commission data. After Imperial College London, he joined Salomon Brothers before setting up his own firm in 2002. At his wedding at Lake Como to his second wife, Caroline Byron, in 2022, Lady Gaga performed. He has four children from a previous marriage.
A spokesperson for Brevan Howard had no comment.