Chris Rokos, a hedge fund billionaire with an estimated £2.6 billion fortune, is an Oxford University graduate who went to a state primary school before being offered a scholarship to Eton College and achieved a first at Oxford. He credits the 'opportunity of education' for setting him on the path to become one of the UK's richest individuals. After university, Rokos entered banking, joining UBS before moving to Goldman Sachs, where he worked on complex financial instruments. He then moved to Credit Suisse, which set him on the path to star trader status, and was later hired by Alan Howard, among a group of traders who left to set up Brevan Howard in 2002. Over the next decade, Rokos reportedly made $4 billion (£3 billion) in profits for investors and around £600 million for himself by the time he left Brevan Howard in 2012.
Rokos set up a family office in Mayfair, but a desire to return to trading resulted in a legal dispute with his former employer over a five-year non-compete clause. An out-of-court settlement allowed him to launch Rokos Capital Management (RCM) in 2015. RCM has since become one of the most successful so-called macro firms, making bets on macroeconomic trends. It manages more than £22 billion and employs 350 people, with offices in London, New York, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi. According to Companies House filings, Rokos paid himself almost £500 million in the year to the end of March, as RCM performed strongly amid volatile markets.
Rokos is a former Tory party donor and one of the UK's biggest taxpayers. He spent much of the last decade presiding over a £175 million renovation of the 200-room Tottenham House mansion near Marlborough in Wiltshire, adding a tennis pavilion and private cinema. Earlier this year, it emerged that RCM was in talks to hire Peter Mandelson in an advisory role.