Telegraph.co.uk- Philip Richards, head of Northern Rock’s biggest shareholder, says the best solution for the bank would be the least newsworthy one.
Listening to the head of one of London’s biggest hedge funds publicly welcoming closer scrutiny of the industry would not long ago have seemed about as likely as hearing Formula 1’s prodigy Lewis Hamilton broadcasting a request for Spanish lessons while draped in the Finnish flag.
But Philip Richards, a former Army officer who has amassed a fortune as the co-founder and chief executive of RAB Capital, can usually be relied upon to stand out from the crowd.
As the lift rose past the floors of the Island Shangri-La hotel in Hong Kong faster than the climb in RAB Capital’s share price since it floated on London’s Aim market, Mr Richards had littletrouble explaining just why he was hurrying to the launch party for his company’s first office outside London.
“I’m the R in RAB,” he told a partygoer unfamiliar with the man who has helped construct a firm with nearly $7bn (£3.4bn) under management in a little over eight years.
Mr Richards’s is not a face that many of his fellow hedge fund executives would fail to recognise – particularly at the moment. In recent weeks he has launched a series of excoriating attacks on what he sees as the deplorable actions of a number of funds which he believes helped incubate panic at Northern Rock by shorting the stricken mortgage bank’s shares. RAB has become the largest shareholder in Northern Rock with a 6.66pc stake.
