Donor of the Week: Ronald Cohen
Author: Jack Maizels
Published on Jun 07, 2012
Our Donor of the Week series aims to shed some light on the people, companies and organisations who are funding our political parties. Each week, we’ll look at the chosen donor’s political involvement, their donation history and any controversy associated with their actions, and question whether this really is the best system for financing our politics.
Who he is:
- An Egyptian-born venture capitalist with an estimated worth of £200m, he was knighted for his services to the industry in 2001
- He co-founded private equity firm Apax and had served as both Chief Executive and Chairman, before retiring from the company in 2005
- He is the Chair of the advisory board to private investment firm Bridges Ventures, as well as Chairman and founder of The Portland Trust, which aims to promote peace between the Israelis and Palestinians by encouraging investment
Political Involvement:
- Appointed to Chair the Social Investment Taskforce in 2000 under the Labour government
- He also agreed to act as interim Chairman for Big Society Capital Limited, a social investment bank following its launch by the coalition government in 2011
Donations:
- He first donated to the Labour Party in 2001, a sum of £100,000 in 2001, followed by a £200,000 donation less than a year later
- His donations that followed were unusually regular, making donations of £250,000 every year, with the exception of 2006 and 2009, in which he donated £250,000 every six months
- However, he has not donated anything to the party since the 2010 election, though did donate £7,000 later that year to Oona King’s bid to become Labour’s London mayoral candidate
- He has donated £2.8m in total to Labour and his wife, Sharon Harel-Cohen, has also donated £61,350
Controversies:
- He holds non-domicile status in the UK despite being based in London, meaning he does not pay UK income or capital gains tax on international earnings
- Whilst he was Chief Executive of Apax, the private equity firm was criticised following the collapse of a company it owned after which 544 members of staff lost most of their pensions
- There were accusations from former employees that this was a deliberately done to minimise Apax’s liabilities, and a former government adviser, Ros Altmann, later described their actions as “immoral”, claims that Apax firmly denied
Notes:
- Date of the donation is the date the donation was accepted by the party
- Analysis refers to donations to main party, individual MPs, MEPs, local parties and affiliated groups, cash donations and non-cash donations
- Electoral Commission Donation Reports have only been available since 2001, and analysis does not consider any donations made before this point
- Variations of the same name e.g. Joe Bloggs, Mr Joe Bloggs, Sir J Bloggs, etc are all collated as the same donor
- Donations from companies that have moved address, changed name or have several subdivisions all making donations are also collated as the same donor, as are all previous forms of the same Trade Unions