City profiles

Jacob Rees-mogg Tory MP Jacob Rees-mogg is currently a party “darling”, says Alan Livsey in the FT. Yet he didn’t always enjoy such “Moggmentum” during his previous career as a fund manager. Indeed, a review of his performance leading the Lloyd George emerging markets fund, from 2003 to 2007, shows it trailed the benchmark MSCI Emerging Markets Index “in four of those five years”, even though Asian markets were then roaring. Some former colleagues charitably put the under-performance down to his “defensive instincts”; others say it “suggests some poor stock selection”. Either way, the analysis is a setback for the staunch Brexiteer, who began playing the markets at “the tender age of nine” and was thought “a savvy investor”. His talent for spotting a lucrative investment “seems to have dwindled over the years”.

John Flint

When he was 15, John Flint decided he wanted to be a banker, said The Times; specifically, he wanted to join HSBC. No problem, said his headmaster at Giggleswick (a public school in Yorkshire), who happened to know the boss of HSBC’S Indonesian business “and wrote asking how his pupil could become an international banker”. Thirty-four years after “this early brush” with HSBC, Flint now finds himself CEO. Rumours had swirled that the bank “could appoint a prominent outsider to shake up its business”, but HSBC has stuck with its tradition of promoting from within. Flint, currently head of retail and wealth management, is a safe pair of hands often referred to as the “John Major of banking”, notes the FT. It’s not known if he favours grey underpants.