Activist hedge fund Parvus Asset Management has taken steps to distance itself from the UK, moving investment management activities to the low-tax territory of Jersey.

Parvus Asset Management registered a company last September in the British crown dependency with an office located in St. Helier, according to a registry filing. Earlier this year, one of the firm’s main UK entities terminated its authorization with Britain’s financial watchdog and transferred its investment management activity to the new Channel Islands outpost that Parvus’s founder, Edoardo Mercadante, owns, other filings show. 

Meanwhile, Italian-born Mercadante has purchased a sprawling country estate for £8.5 million on the territory between southern England and northern France, according to recent property listings. The home features a swimming pool, gym and tennis court. 

Mercadante has also this year stepped down as a director of at least two Parvus entities in the UK, after holding those roles for more than a decade, filings show. Mercadante still lists his residency as the UK in a remaining role linked to the firm, in which Chris Hohn’s The Children’s Investment Fund has a minority stake.

Parvus, which has about $11 billion in regulatory assets under management, didn’t respond to a request for comment. TCI declined to comment.

Mercadante is making changes at an unsettling time for many of the UK’s richest. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves is expected to increase taxes in a number of areas this year in an attempt to meet key budget goals. The government has already imposed tougher tax rules on wealthy residents originally hailing from abroad, known as “non-doms.”

The previous system allowed non-doms to avoid UK taxes on overseas earnings for as long as 15 years. The new rules offer a shorter timeframe for tax breaks and also expose residents to UK inheritance duties on overseas assets. It’s unclear whether Mercadante is affected by these changes, which have pushed numerous financiers to move abroad over the past year. 

Jersey residents, by contrast, don’t face any capital gains or inheritance tax, while the territory also offers special corporate tax rates to fund managers.

As a result, Jersey is a popular place to domicile a hedge fund. Brevan Howard Asset Management, Man Group Plc, Taula Capital Management and Michael Hintze’s Deltroit Asset Management are among a number of hedge fund firms that are based, or have an outpost, in the Channel Islands territory.

Mercadante, a former fund manager at Merrill Lynch Investment Management, founded Parvus in 2004. Several Parvus-linked entities remain registered in the same Mayfair office building as Hohn’s hedge fund firm.

With assistance from Nishant Kumar.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.