Hargreaves nets £20m at new fund

BILLIONAIRE Peter Hargreaves has made nearly £20 million from a fund he launched three years ago.

The Brexiteer, who built his fortune from cofounding investment supermarket Hargreaves Lansdown, put £25 million into the Blue Whale Growth fund in 2017.

The fund is up 76 per cent so his investment is worth about £45 million.

The fund’ s manager

Stephen Yiu has invested almost 60 per cent in technology stocks, including US giants Facebook and PayPal. The fund holds just 27 stocks.

As well as backing the fund, Hargreaves launched the company behind it, Blue Whale Capital, with Yiu.

The pair i nvested a combined £ 1.15 million i nt o t he busi ness up to March.

The company’s accounts, seen by The Mail on Sunday, show Blue Whale Capital made i ts first annual profit of £360,000 in March after making losses in its first two years.

The Blue Whale fund now runs £650 million of cash, up from £250 million in March. More investors have put money in since it notched up three years of returns. Hargreaves Lansdown refrained from promoting Blue Whale because of concerns over conflict of interest.

Hargreaves, 74, is the largest shareholder in the fund supermarket with a stake of nearly 24 per cent. His fortune fell by £646 million to £2.4 billion in the year to May, according to The Sunday Times Rich List. He left the board of Hargreaves Lansdown in 2015.