Billionaire Chris Hohn Missed $200 Million LSE Payday After Share Sale

(Bloomberg) -- The activist investor who waged a public battle with London Stock Exchange Group Plc over the fate of its former chief missed out on a bumper payday after dealmaking by Xavier Rolet’s successor sent the shares soaring.

Hedge fund manager Chris Hohn’s TCI Fund Management sought to oust the chairman of LSE at the time and reinstate former Chief Executive Officer Rolet about 18 months ago. After his efforts to keep Rolet failed, Hohn sold the majority of TCI’s 5% stake in late 2018. LSE confirmed on the weekend it was in discussions to buy data and trading firm Refinitiv in a $27 billion deal, pushing its shares 15% higher on July 29.

The September sale means TCI missed out on a gain of about $200 million, according to calculations by Bloomberg. TCI cut its stake to about 1.8% from 5.1% in September 2018, according to stock exchange filings. Shares of the exchange operator have risen around 40% since that sale.

Hohn doesn’t have any regrets. “We reinvested in equally good investments,” he said, noting the fund is up 36% gross of fees this year.

TCI cut its LSE stake just weeks into new chief executive officer and former Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s executive David Schwimmer’s tenure.

To contact the reporters on this story: Viren Vaghela in London at vvaghela1@bloomberg.net;Tom Metcalf in London at tmetcalf7@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ambereen Choudhury at achoudhury@bloomberg.net, Keith Campbell

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