Crispin Odey

Early life

Odey was born in east Yorkshire, the only son of (George) Richard Odey. In 1980, his sister Caroline Jane Odey married Hon. Henry David Montgomery (heir apparent to the viscountcy), the son of David Montgomery, 2nd Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, and they have three children.

He was educated at Harrow School, where his father had been head boy, and graduated from Christ Church, Oxford in 1980 with a degree in history and economics.

His father was from a family of Yorkshire industrialists, and his grandfather George Odey, "a formidable bully", had been the Conservative MP for Beverley. His mother was from the "prominent" Clitherow family.

Soon after graduation, he found out that his father had huge debts, and the trustees made him responsible for Hotham Hall, a 4,000-acre estate that had been in his mother's family since 1720. Aged 23, he sold everything. According to Odey, his father was a "wastrel from beginning to end", and survived on handouts from his son.

Early career

After university he qualified as a barrister but instead joined Framlington fund managers, leaving to work for Barings International where he managed the Baring European Growth Trust. He ran continental European pension funds at Barings and at Framlington.

Odey Asset Management

Odey founded Odey Asset Management in 1991. George Soros was one of the original investors, seeding Odey $150 million. He suffered large losses in 1994 when the Federal Reserve unexpectedly lifted interest rates (one of his funds lost 44 per cent of its value), but went on to thrive, for instance by foreseeing that the value of insurers would rise after the September 11 attacks on New York in 2001.

Through the early part of the 2000s Odey worked closely with Hugh Hendry, whom he had recruited and who ran Odey's top performing Continental Europe Fund. Hendry left in 2005 to establish Eclectica Asset Management. In reference to Hendry, Odey himself said: "Odey in the 1990s was a one-man band; Odey in the 2000s was a two-man band."

Odey came to wide attention in 2008 when he paid himself £28 million after successfully anticipating the credit crunch. That year his return was 54.8 per cent. He had been bearish about the position of banks for a number of years, shorting Bradford & Bingley as early as 2005, questioning the German landesbanks and warning consistently about the dangers of debt and inflated house prices. He continued his short positions into early 2009 but in April took longer positions as he predicted the market rally of that year. The Times newspaper selected Odey as a "Business Big Shot" in 2008.

In May 2009 Odey attracted some controversy for saying in The Times that he would leave the country to avoid paying 50% income tax.

He was at the centre of further controversy when it was suggested that he financially backed anti-EU campaigners in the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty while some hedge funds had taken out specific bets on the insolvency of the country in the event that the vote not be carried. The Treaty passed by a margin of 67.1 per cent to 32.9 per cent. Odey denied that he had funded the Libertas 'no' campaign in faxes issued to RTÉ and TV3.

In May 2010, Odey Asset Management formed a new investment management firm with Geneva’s Bruellan Wealth Management called Odey Bruellan.

Odey Asset Management's Odey European Inc. fund was ranked No. 5 on Bloomberg's 2012 list of the 100 Top-Performing Large Hedge Funds.

In 2016, it was reported that Odey saw his personal fortune plummet by £200 million after profits at Odey Asset Management suffered a significant decline. His salary was slashed as profits were down nearly 45% from the previous year. Later that year, his hedge fun won about 15% of its value following the results of Brexit.

Personal life

Odey was briefly married to Rupert Murdoch's eldest daughter, Prudence, although the pair quickly separated. The marriage lasted 15 months.

He subsequently married Nichola Pease, deputy chairman of JO Hambro Capital Management and a member of one of the founding families of Barclays Bank. Nichola is younger daughter of Sir Richard Pease, 3rd Baronet, and a sister of Carolyn Varley (wife of John Varley) and Richard Pease, a funds manager. He had no children by his first wife, and three children, two sons and one daughter, by his second wife. The sons were born in 1994 and 1999, and the daughter in 1997.

Odey reportedly enjoys shooting and fishing. He lives in Chelsea, London, and has a house in English Bicknor, where a pork sausage has been named after him by a neighbour.