What a year! Cleared in a sex scandal, now Crispin Odey is £15m richer

Hedge fund baron Crispin Odey bagged a bumper £15.6million payday after a roller-coaster year.

The share of profits which Odey scooped from his firm, Odey Asset Management, in the year to April 5, 2021 was more than 10 times his £1.5million pay a year earlier.

The windfall came as the performance fees which the firm generated rocketed from £896,000 to £39.8million.

Hamper time: Hedge fund baron Crispin Odey has bagged a bumper £15.6m payday after a rollercoaster year

But as business was booming, Odey was facing hurdles in his personal life. The Brexit-backing multi-millionaire separated from his wife, fellow fund manager Nichola Pease, after a sexual assault trial case this year.

The couple, who were once dubbed the ‘City’s Posh and Becks’ due to their high profile, split after Odey was acquitted of indecently assaulting a junior banker in 1998.

Odey, 62, admitted to verbally propositioning the young woman, whom he had invited back to his home.

But he denied groping her, calling her allegations a ‘horrible slur’.

Odey Asset Management declined to comment on its results for the year.

But while performance fees shot up, indicating the asset manager’s bets had paid off, its base management fees dwindled from £23million to £16.9million.

The amount of money which it invests on behalf of clients rose from £2.2billion to £2.7billion.

The firm declined to comment on which of its punts from the year to April had been big winners. But over the last few months, Odey has placed bets on ‘Big Oil’.

He told the Financial Times in October that the trend for mainstream investors to dump unloved fossil fuel companies was ‘leaving fantastic returns on the table’.

He shorted Deliveroo, taking a punt that the takeaway firm’s shares would fall earlier this year.

The firm’s funds also placed bets against pandemic-hit cinema chain AMC Entertainment, which was one of the most popular companies involved in the ‘meme stocks’ phenomenon.

Retail investors co-ordinated on social media to buy into these businesses, driving up the share price to batter the hedge funds who were betting against them.

But Odey’s funds doubled down, predicting that the shares would eventually slide again. James Hanbury, a fund manager at Odey Asset Management, said the craze was creating ‘some major distortions’ and ‘compelling short opportunities’.

Odey, a prominent Tory donor, made £220million on the night of the Brexit vote, betting that markets would fall.

The punt drew criticism, since Odey himself had agitated to leave the EU.

The following morning, he quoted an Italian proverb: ‘Il mattino ha l’oro in bocca,’ or ‘The morning has gold in its mouth.’

He stepped down as chief executive of his firm last year, just months after he was charged with sexual assault.

Several of the manager’s funds were also quietly rebranded so they no longer bore his name.