Former LSE Group chief Rolet approached about top CQS role

Xavier Rolet, the former chief executive of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSE), has been approached about taking on a top job at CQS, the asset manager run by one of the Conservative Party's most generous donors.

Sky News has learnt that Mr Rolet, who quit the ‎LSE last year after a bitter boardroom row which gripped the City, is one of several prominent figures sounded out about a leading role by Sir Michael Hintze, CQS's founder.

It was unclear on Monday evening how close Mr Rolet might be to accepting a job with CQS, which manages more than $17bn for investors.

One source close to the firm said that to link the former LSE chief with CQS would be "premature", although one City insider suggested there were active discussions taking place between them.

Sir Michael, a British-Australian investor and enthusiastic Brexit supporter, founded CQS in 1999 and has become one of the City's most successful figures, amassing a £1.4bn fortune, according to this year's Sunday Times Rich List.

He is reported to have given well over £1.5m to political causes including the Tories and to the Vote Leave campaign ahead of the 2016 EU referendum.

A move to hire Mr Rolet would be an undoubted coup for a firm which has ambitions of becoming a much larger player in the asset management sector.

The Frenchman was regarded as one of the most ‎effective bosses in corporate Britain during his eight years running the LSE, during which he diversified the business and transformed it into a critical provider of financial markets infrastructure.

His tenure was marred in its final stages, however, by a bitter row which saw its boardroom laid siege to by The Children's Investment Fund (TCI), a hedge fund manager which alleged that the LSE had forced him to step down.

Weeks of ‎fractious exchanges ensued between the LSE and TCI, with Mr Rolet accused of doing little to bring the instability to an end.

He eventually agreed to leave and said he would not return under any circumstances after Mark Carney, the Bank of England Governor, signalled that the row should be defused.

Since leaving the LSE, Mr Rolet has joined the board of PhosAgro, a Russian fertiliser company, but has yet to accept a full-time position.

Some people close to him believe he is keen on another chief executive's job, although it is unclear whether Sir Michael would relinquish that title if Mr Rolet did join CQS.

Sir Michael, who has a wing of the Natural History Museum in London named after him, is also the ‎firm's senior investment officer, while its board of directors includes Lord Myners, the former City minister.

Established as a hedge fund, CQS now has a mainstream 'long-only' funds business which is larger by assets than the trading activity which it originally engaged in.

The firm reported profits of $160m on revenues of $311m in the 15-month period from January‎ 2017 to March this year, according to the industry publication Financial News.

CQS's mandates include managing money on behalf of local authority pension funds.

A CQS‎ spokesman declined to comment on what he described as "speculation" on Monday.