Pierre Lagrange

Pierre Philippe Alexandre Lagrange (born 15 March 1962) is a Belgian economist, hedge fund manager, financier, and a co-founder of GLG Partners. His net worth is estimated at £500 million according to The Sunday Times.^[when?]

Early life and education

Lagrange was born in March 1962 in Belgium.^[1] He received both BS and MS degrees in Economics (Business engineering, Ingénieur de gestion) from the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management.^[2]

Career

Lagrange worked for JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs before co-founding GLG Partners in 1995 with Noam Gottesman and Jonathan Green as a division of Lehman Brothers. The name of the company is composed of the first initials of each of the founder's last names.^[3] GLG became independent in 2000 and went public in 2007 listing on the New York Stock Exchange.^[4] In 2010, GLG Partners was purchased by the Man Group for US$1.6 billion.^[4] The two remaining GLG founders Noam Gottesman and Pierre Lagrange–Greene had left the company prior to the Man Group purchase–each received a $200 million shareholding in the Man Group in return for a three-year promise to stay.^[3]

In 2013, Lagrange purchased the Savile Row tailor Huntsman.^[5]

Personal life

In 2009, the Sunday Times Rich List reported that his wealth declined £265 million to £195 million due to the credit crunch.^[6] In September 2011, his wealth had rebounded to £300 million.^[7]

In September 2011, he and his wife Catherine Anspach, with whom he has three sons, announced their divorce. The divorce settlement was estimated at more than £160 million.^[8] He married his husband Ebs Burnough in 2019.^[9] They live between Monaco, London, Hampshire and New York.^[10] His fourth child was born in 2020.^[11]

In November 2011, Lagrange sued the Knoedler gallery, New York, for selling him a fake Jackson Pollock painting.^[12]

He owned the Grade II listed Woodperry House in Oxfordshire, before downsizing in 2006 to a country house in Hampshire.^[13] In August 2011 he also reportedly sold a house at 17 Kensington Palace Gardens to the Russian-born billionaire Roman Abramovich, for £90 million.^[14]

Lagrange spoke of his opposition to Brexit in a 2019 interview with the Financial Times, characterising the 2016 vote as a "red herring" compared to wider problems facing the UK.^[15]