Patrick Degorce (born 1969) is a French

hedge fund A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as sho ...

manager, and the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Theleme Partners LLP.

Early life

Degorce has French nationality, and Swiss residence.

Career

Degorce was an officer in the French Navy in his 20s, before switching to a career in financial services. He worked for Merrill Lynch Investment Managers for seven years, rising to fund manager. In 2003, Degorce was a co-founder, along with

Chris Hohn Sir Christopher Anthony Hohn KCMG (born October 1966) is a British billionaire hedge fund manager. In 2003, Hohn established The Children's Investment Fund Management (TCI), a prominent value-based hedge fund. Profits generated by the fund we ...

, of

The Children's Investment Fund Management The Children’s Investment Fund Management (UK) LLP (TCI) is a London‐based hedge fund management firm founded by Chris Hohn in 2003 which manages The Children’s Investment Master Fund. TCI makes long‐term investments in companies globally ...

(TCIF) hedge fund. In 2007, Degorce wrote to the Dutch bank

ABN AMRO ABN or abn may refer to: Companies * ABN AMRO Group, a Dutch bank group * ABN AMRO, sometimes referred to as "ABN" in shorthand, is a Dutch state-owned bank * Algemene Bank Nederland, a now-defunct Dutch bank Radio, news and television organizat ...

calling for its break up, citing its unsuccessful cost-cutting plans. The letter and subsequent press attention ultimately led to its purchase by a consortium led by

Royal Bank of Scotland The Royal Bank of Scotland plc (RBS; gd, Banca Rìoghail na h-Alba) is a major retail and commercial bank in Scotland. It is one of the retail banking subsidiaries of NatWest Group, together with NatWest (in England and Wales) and Ulster Bank ...

, in what was at the time the world's largest bank takeover at US$98.3 billion. In 2009, Degorce founded Theleme Partners LLP, a hedge fund based at 15

Davies Street Davies is a patronymic surname of English or Welsh origin. There are two main theories concerning its beginnings, neither of which has been definitively proven. The first theory contends that it may be a corruption of "Dyfed", the name of a medie ...

, Mayfair, London, and is its CEO and CIO. Theleme is based in the same premises as hedge fund powerhouse Lansdowne Partners, with whom they share some back office functions. Degorce was British Prime Minister

Rishi Sunak Rishi Sunak (; born 12 May 1980) is a British politician who has served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party since October 2022. He previously held two Cabinet of ...

's boss at the Children's Investment Fund Management and Theleme Partners. In 2011, Degorce was one of the earliest investors in the pharmaceutical company

Moderna Moderna, Inc. ( ) is an American pharmaceutical and biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts that focuses on RNA therapeutics, primarily mRNA vaccines. These vaccines use a copy of a molecule called messenger RNA (mRNA) to produ ...

(when they only had about ten employees), in the hope that they could help find a cure for his "high school sweetheart" wife, who had Stage IV lung cancer. In October 2017, following hearings at lower courts, three judges at the

Court of Appeal A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...

ruled in favour of HMRC in respect of a film financing tax avoidance scheme dating back to 2006–07, and Degorce was liable to pay tax of £7.5 million. As of November 2017, Theleme Partners managed funds totalling US$2.8 billion.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Degorce, Patrick 1969 births Living people French hedge fund managers French chief executives French Navy officers