Paul Ruddock, co-founder and CEO of Lansdowne Partners, the London-based hedge fund with $16 billion of assets under management, talks to Hedge Funds Review about the industry and its future.

Paul Ruddock has been honoured at the Eleventh European Performance Awards, being presented with Hedge Funds Review’s outstanding contribution to the hedge fund industry.

Ruddock helped set up hedge fund Lansdowne Partners in 1998. The business now has $16 billion of assets under management with 18 partners and approximately 90 employees. Lansdowne manages three fundamental equity strategies: UK, European and global financials.

Ruddock started investing in hedge funds in the mid-1980s “because at the time there were a few very talented managers who were really able to invest without the restrictions that traditional firms had. That became much more focused for me after Schroder took over the firm whose European business I was funding in 1994,” he explained.

He began his investment career as an institutional equity salesman at Goldman Sachs & Co in 1980 before moving to Schroder & Co in 1984. From 1993 he was a director of the Schroder Securities European division of Schroder and a director of Schroder Securities Europe and Schroder Securities (Switzerland).

After a review of Schroder’s wealth management business, Ruddock concluded that “most investment management firms in Europe were managing money on a purely relative basis for their private clients as well as their institutions whereas what private clients wanted was to make money and not lose money”.

This led him to think of setting up his own hedge fund.

Ruddock admitted he still enjoys the hedge fund environment. “It’s a fascinating business. We are looking at trends globally. We obviously are an equity firm but we are looking at commodity prices, at geopolitical events,” he said.

“We have some of the most talented, bright people in the firm that you could imagine so it’s always a very stimulating environment,” he said. “You never know what’s going to happen. You never know what crisis is around the corner. It’s a fascinating business,” noted Ruddock.

Some of his philanthropic interests include London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and British Museum. He is an ambassador and major donor for Afrikids as well as a major long-term supporter of the Courtauld Institute and Greenhouse Schools Project. Together with his wife, Ruddock funds the assistant directors’ programme for Donmar Warehouse.

A full interview with Paul Ruddock will be published in the June 2011 edition of Hedge Funds Review.