Hedge Fund Philanthropy

Many of the wealthy have become great philanthropists, especially since the seminal The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie, was published in 1889.

This story from the Wall Street Journal reports on the philanthropy of some of the current wealthy.

An excerpt.

“The founder of U.K. hedge-fund manager CQS, Michael Hintze, nods towards the view out of his window, over the gardens of Buckingham Palace and towards central London.

"If we just look out there, we see churches, halls and hospitals that were all built by private individuals through private subscriptions," he says. "It all came from private philanthropy."

“Mr. Hintze belongs to a group of hedge-fund managers, which includes the likes of Chris Hohn of TCI and Ian Wace of Marshall Wace, who are as well known—perhaps, even better known—for their charity work as for their day jobs.

“Running a hedge fund is by necessity a secretive activity, while philanthropy thrives on publicity. It is a tension that the intensely private Mr. Hintze admits to wrestling with. It is perhaps one of the reasons that he uses the view out of his window to put in context the $35 million he has donated to a variety of causes within a long tradition of philanthropy.

“He was reluctantly persuaded to abandon his policy of anonymity by the University of Sydney, his alma mater, when he donated funding for a professorial chair in international security. The university wanted to name the chair after him because it thought it would inspire other people to make similar bequests.

“It was a step he says he took with great trepidation: "I trusted them, so I did it. [But] it's like beating your chest. I cannot pretend to be modest for one second, but that was a big step."

“Mr. Hintze has since become one of the public faces of philanthropy in the U.K. So many letters requesting donations pour into CQS's office that he has hired a person to deal with them. "Somebody has to read those letters, and treat those people with respect," says Mr. Hintze. "They are not asking just because they want something for nothing. You need to consider their requests, you need to think about them and you need to reply."

“The Hintze Family Charitable Foundation has supported around 150 charities in the last five years. These range from the Wandsworth Museum, in an unfashionable borough of London, to the Victoria & Albert Museum, the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design.

“A simple principle guides which charities Mr. Hintze supports: He wants to give something back to people and institutions with which he has a personal connection. "Wandsworth, for example, as a community has given a lot to me and my family," he says. Mr. Hintze lives with his wife and their four state-educated children in the South London neighborhood. He says the V&A has given him enormous pleasure and aided his intellectual growth. He backs the Conservative Party because "it is pretty clear to me that my success has happened in the U.K. because of the context that the Conservative Party provided."