Michael Hintze (b. c. 1953) is an Australian/British businessman, philanthropist and political patron, based in the United Kingdom. According to the latest Forbes Rich List, he is the world’s 880th richest person, worth $1.2 billion.[1][2][3]
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After his Russian nobility related grandparents fled Russia post the 1917 Bolshevik revolution,[2] he was born in the Chinese city of Harbin. After Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Communist Party took over power, his refugee parents fled to Australia.[1]
Raised by his secretary mother in Sydney, he was educated at the local Christian Brothers school. He then graduated from the University of Sydney having studied physics and engineering, residing at St John's College, and then took an MBA at Harvard University.
On graduation, he joined the Australian Army for three years, rising to the rank of Captain.[1]
Moving to New York to train in financial services, he worked for Salomon Brothers and Credit Swiss First Boston. Relocating to London with them, he then became Head of Equity Trading at Goldman Sachs.
In 1999 he launched his own hedge fund company, CQS,[4] and has been cited in the press as one of the highest paid people in the City of London.[5]
With his wife Dorothy, Hintze set up the Hintze Family Charitable Foundation, which has given significant and wide-ranging philanthropic support to around 150 different causes, focusing mainly on health, education, religion and the arts.[1]
Among major donations, he has established the chair of International Security at the University of Sydney, enabled the restoration of Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Pauline Chapel at the Vatican and sponsored two major galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum. He also came to the aid of Wandsworth Museum, which was facing imminent closure by offering a £2,000,000 rescue package while co-chairing Clapham's Trinity Hospice campaign for a new in-patient centre which has now been completed. Through CQS and the Hintze Family Charitable Foundation he provided funding to create a 'theatre in the round' at the Old Vic in London. Most recent projects have included sponsorship of an iconic exhibition of Raphael's Tapestries for the Sistine Chapel at the V&A and a £2,000,000 donation to the National Gallery.
Hintze currently serves as chairman of the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment, a trustee of the National Gallery, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the University of Sydney Trust and Wandsworth Museum. He also serves on the International Council of the V&A and is Chairman of the UK Patrons of the Arts of the Vatican Museums. In 2009 he was appointed vice-president of the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association.
In 2006, at the time of the Cash for Peerages allegations concerning the Labour Party, Hintze voluntarily revealed he was one of the previously anonymous patrons who had made loans to the Conservative Party.[6] To date his known loans and donations to the party total around £4million.[1] In the five months to September 2011 he donated £31,000, enough to grant him membership to the Conservative Treasurers’ Group, the second highest rung on the party's donor’s ladder, which allows its members access to senior Conservative figures through a series of lunches, receptions and campaign launches.[7]
When the Conservative Party were in opposition, Hintze provided the following personal cash donations: £37,500 to George Osborne; £25,000 to David Willetts; £10,000 to the private office of Dr Liam Fox MP; £1,200 to Theresa May; £7,000 to David Davis; £1,500 to Adam Holloway; £5,000 Boris Johnson.[1] In addition, CQS made non-cash donations of: £25,763 to William Hague; £10,439 to Dr Liam Fox; £1,254 to George Osborne.[1] In May 2008, David Cameron declared a donation from Hintze to the Conservative Party that was used to pay for drinks receptions for Tory MPs and their partners. In March 2008, Hintze paid for a private jet to ferry Cameron and George Osborne from Newcastle to Biggin Hill after the Conservative Party conference.[1]
In October 2011, it was revealed that Adam Werritty, a close friend and business associate of then Secretary of State for Defence Dr Liam Fox MP, was provided with a free desk by Hintze at CQS's London base as part of his £29,000 donation to Fox's charity Atlantic Bridge.[2][8] Hintze also supplied a private jet for Fox and Werritty to fly from the United States to London in May 2011.[9]
He was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Gregory by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.
Married to American citizen Dorothy, whom he met at Harvard, the couple have four children, all educated at British state schools.[1] The family live in Balham in the London Borough of Wandsworth.[2]