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Sir Keir Starmer has appointed one of many UK’s finest related Metropolis advisers as his level of contact with company executives and worldwide buyers, as the brand new prime minister seeks to deepen his celebration’s ties with enterprise.
Varun Chandra, the managing companion of Hakluyt, a London-based consultancy based by former MI6 intelligence officers, will turn into Downing Avenue’s particular adviser on enterprise and funding, Labour figures stated. To take up the put up, the 39-year-old has resigned from Hakluyt, which he has led since 2019, and can take a big pay reduce to work for the federal government.
Chandra, Hakluyt’s highest-paid director, was handed £2.1mn within the 12 months to June 2023, the latest 12 months for which it has filed accounts, in keeping with Corporations Home filings.
His new position is ready to be an essential one for the brand new Labour authorities, which has made financial development the centrepiece of its agenda and has sought to construct shut ties with executives.
With the general public purse constrained, Starmer and chancellor Rachel Reeves are courting personal funding from inside and out of doors the UK to fund new infrastructure in a departure from Starmer’s predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn.
Chandra’s networking skills will now be put to the take a look at as he seeks to keep up a few of these hyperlinks whereas ministers turn into extra preoccupied by the day-to-day duties of working the federal government.
Hakluyt stated final 12 months that it advises 40 per cent of the world’s most respected corporations and greater than 15 of the highest 20 personal fairness companies.
Considered one of Chandra’s early duties will most likely be to handle relations with the personal fairness trade, with the brand new Labour authorities set to seek the advice of on its pledge to finish a “loophole” that permits buyout executives to learn from beneficial tax therapy of the earnings they make from profitable offers.
Chandra as soon as labored as an funding banker on the now-defunct Lehman Brothers and is near Sir Tony Blair, having labored for the previous prime minister for about six years from 2008 as he started to construct his personal advisory enterprise following his exit from frontline politics.
He has been on the forefront of Hakluyt’s efforts to solid off its fame for working within the shadows and transfer into the mainstream of the skilled companies sector. The group, whose advisory board is chaired by former Tory chief Lord William Hague, gathers intelligence by a mix of analysis by its 200 workers and insights from a community of 1000’s of individuals with backgrounds in enterprise and authorities all over the world.
Corporations then use this data on company, regulatory and geopolitical points to help decision-making in areas comparable to mergers and acquisitions. As a part of its efforts to maneuver deeper into Silicon Valley, Chandra launched Hakluyt Capital and raised about $50mn for the agency’s first-ever enterprise capital fund.
Chandra performed a job in luring Sir Olly Robbins, the previous Brexit chief negotiator, from Goldman Sachs to Hakluyt early final 12 months, the place he’s accountable for company shoppers in Europe and the Center East.
Robbins is now in a powerful place to take up a senior Whitehall position within the new Starmer-led Labour authorities, probably as cupboard secretary or as everlasting secretary at 10 Downing Avenue. Likewise, Chandra employed Emily Benn, the granddaughter of Tony Benn and a well-connected Labour determine who’s seen as a probable future MP.
The boss of 1 rival stated that though he was sceptical of Hakluyt’s skill to develop given its mannequin of counting on this community to assemble intelligence, Chandra had been a really efficient and spectacular chief.
Downing Avenue’s enterprise adviser put up was beforehand held by Franck Petitgas, a one-time Morgan Stanley banker, beneath Rishi Sunak’s administration.