Art and money: The City's top five donors
London Mayor Boris Johnson this week appealed to financiers to consider donating their bonuses to support the arts, citing London's artistic heritage as one of the City's advantages over rival financial centres. Here, Financial News profiles five of the most prominent donors from the ranks of the UK's wealthy bankers, asset managers and private equity types.
• John Studzinski
The head of buyout firm Blackstone’s mergers and acquisitions practice committed £5m (€5.5m) to the new development of the Tate Modern in 2007. He was a Tate trustee from 1998 to 2007, during which period he was also co-head of the corporate, investment banking and markets division of HSBC. He persuaded the bank to spend £1m to sponsor a Frieda Kahlo exhibition at Tate Modern for £1m in 2005, justifying the bank’s decision to sponsor art as a “commercial opportunity”.
• Michael Hintze
The founder and co-chief executive of hedge fund manager CQS has been a prolific donor, with beneficiaries including London theatre the Old Vic and the Victoria & Albert Museum, where visitors can visit the Dorothy and Michael Hintze sculpture galleries that he financed for £2.5m in 2007. In the same year he told Forbes magazine: “My motto is, 'If you earn a lot, you give a lot.'”
• Sir Ronnie Cohen
The retired founder of venture capital firm Apax is a trustee and former director of the British Museum. Art, along with humanitarian charities, education and poverty relief, is listed as a “main beneficiary” of his gifts in the Sunday Times rich list.
• Jonathan Moulds
Bank of America Merrill Lynch's president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa has long been a supporter of the performing arts, sitting on the board of the London Symphony Orchestra and chairman of the LSO Advisory Council.
• Anthony Fry
The former head of UK investment banking at Lehman Brothers, who left two years ago to join London banking boutique Evercore Partners, has been generous with his time - last year he became a member of the BBC Trust – as well as his money, with the Museum of London a large beneficiary.
--write to whutchings@efinancialnews.com
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