Mr average. I think not!
Career
After graduating from the
University of Oxford in 1991, Rees-Mogg worked for the
Rothschild investment bankunder
Nils Taube before moving to
Hong Kong in 1993
[26] to join Lloyd George Management.
[27][28] During his tenure in Hong Kong, he became a close friend with
Governor Chris Patten and was a regular at
Government House. Three years later, he returned to London and was put in charge of some of the firm’s emerging markets funds and by 2003, was managing a newly established Lloyd George Emerging Markets Fund.
[29] In 2007, he left the company with a number of colleagues to set up their own fund management firm, Somerset Capital Management,
[30] with the aid of hedge fund manager
Crispin Odey. Following Rees-Mogg's election as the Member of Parliament for
North East Somerset, he stepped down as chief executive of the company; however, he continues to receive income in his capacity as a partner.
[26] Somerset Capital Management is managed via subsidiaries in the
tax havens of the
Cayman Islands and
Singapore. Rees-Mogg has defended offshore tax havens, and his vast wealth (£100,000,000+, with his wife, when she comes into her inheritance, as of November 2016)
[31] has left him open to the criticism that he can not understand the lives and concerns of many ordinary people.
[32] In 2018, Somerset Capital opened an investment fund in Dublin, citing Brexit as a cause of "considerable uncertainty" amid concerns about being cut off from European investors, and that Brexit “may increase costs or make it more difficult for the Icav to pursue its objectives”;
[33] this is contrary to Rees-Mogg's public assurances about Brexit to the British public.
