John Hempton is an Australian investor. He is the founder, co-owner and CIO of Bronte Capital Management Pty Ltd, a hedge fund management company.

Career

Hempton was educated at

Sydney Boys High School Sydney Boys High School ('SBHS'), otherwise known as Sydney High School ('SHS') or simply High, is an Australian government-funded single-sex academically selective secondary day school for boys, located at Moore Park, New South Wales, a s ...

and received a

Bachelor in Economics A bachelor is a man who is not and never has been married.Bachelors are, in Pitt & al.'s phrasing, "men who live independently, outside of their parents' home and other institutional settings, who are neither married nor cohabitating". (). Etymo ...

from the

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide is a public university, public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. Its main campus in the Adelaide city centre includes many Sa ...

in 1991. He later worked at the Australian Treasury until 1997 mostly on tax policy and analysing accounts to investigate company tax avoidance. He then worked for the

ANZ Bank The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited, commonly known as ANZ Bank, is a multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is Australia's second-largest bank by assets and fo ...

in strategic planning through 1997. Between 1998 and 1999 Hempton was the Chief Analyst of Tax Policies in New Zealand Treasury, In 1999 he joined

Platinum Asset Management Platinum Asset Management is an Australian asset management company. It has been publicly traded on the Australian Securities Exchange since 2007. It is a constituent member of the S&P/ASX 300 index. In 2015, it was ranked as the largest hedge f ...

which was started by billionaire

Kerr Neilson Kerr Neilson (born 17 October 1949) is a South African-born Australian investment manager who co-founded Platinum Asset Management. Neilson's ability to consistently choose high-performing stocks has seen him dubbed "Australia's Warren Buffett" ...

. Hempton was the Head of Financials at Platinum Asset Management and the youngest partner at the firm. The company listed in on the

Australian Securities Exchange Australian Securities Exchange Ltd (ASX) is an Australian public company that operates Australia's primary Exchange (organized market), securities exchange, the Australian Securities Exchange (sometimes referred to outside of Australia as, or c ...

in 2007. Hempton retired at age 39 but later founded Bronte Capital in 2009. The company manages over 1 Billion dollars for investors including the former Australian Prime Minister

Malcolm Turnbull Malcolm Bligh Turnbull (born 24 October 1954) is an Australian former politician and businessman who served as the 29th prime minister of Australia from 2015 to 2018. He held office as Liberal Party of Australia, leader of the Liberal Party an ...

Wirecard

Hempton began to suspect irregularities at German payments company

Wirecard Wirecard AG is an insolvent German payment processor and financial services provider whose former Chief executive officer, CEO, Chief operating officer, COO, two Board of directors, board members, and other executives have been arrested or other ...

in 2012 following a Wirecard acquisition in Indonesia, and in 2014 he tipped off ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

'' journalist

Dan McCrum Dan McCrum (born 1978/1979) is an English journalist who is an investigative journalist for the ''Financial Times'', having joined the newspaper in 2007. He is best known for his investigation into the Wirecard scandal between 2014 and 2020. McC ...

. While the firm did collapse in 2020 following McCrum's investigation, Hempton's fund lost money in his short positions, as many had expired prior to Wirecard's collapse.

Valeant

He repeatedly warned investors of problems at

Valeant Pharmaceuticals Bausch Health Companies Inc. is a global, diversified American-Canadian pharmaceutical company. Its global corporate headquarters are located in Laval, Quebec, Canada, and its U.S. headquarters are in Bridgewater, New Jersey. It develops, manufa ...

between 2014 and 2017, including billionaire investors and traders such as

Bill Ackman William Albert Ackman (born May 11, 1966) is an American billionaire hedge fund manager who is the founder and chief executive officer of Pershing Square Capital Management, a hedge fund management company. His investment approach has made him ...

and Bill Miller, prior to its share price collapsing. Hempton made 5 million profit on

short selling In finance, being short in an asset means investing in such a way that the investor will profit if the market value of the asset falls. This is the opposite of the more common Long (finance), long Position (finance), position, where the inves ...

Valeant stock. Hempton appeared as himself in the

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

series

Dirty Money Money laundering is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money obtained from illicit activities (often known as dirty money) such as drug trafficking, sex work, terrorism, corruption, and embezzlement, and converting the funds into ...

in the episode ''Drug Short''.

Herbalife

Hempton's conflict with Ackman is not confined to Valeant. Ackman announced as 1 billion short on

Herbalife Herbalife Nutrition Ltd., also called Herbalife International, Inc. (with a U.S. subsidiary called Herbalife International of America) or simply Herbalife, is an American multinational multi-level marketing (MLM) corporation that develops and se ...

in late 2012 claiming that the company was a

pyramid scheme A pyramid scheme is a business model which, rather than earning money (or providing Return on investment, returns on investments) by sale of legitimate product (business), products to an end consumer, mainly earns money by recruiting new members ...

preying on low income earners. Although mid-2013 Hempton appeared on

CNBC CNBC is an American List of business news channels, business news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group, a unit of Comcast's NBCUniversal. The network broadcasts live business news and analysis programming during the morning, Day ...

stating that Herbalife were “scumbags” but that he was still investing in them. Hempton has since researched the company further and continued to invest in it while viewing it as highly ethical. In 2018 Ackman exited his near billion-dollar investment position against Herbalife after the company's stock price continued to rise.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hempton, John Living people Australian investors Australian stock traders Year of birth missing (living people) Chief investment officers Australian company founders People educated at Sydney Boys High School University of Adelaide alumni