Markets: Great fund managers that are passed to politics, new trend?

Days ago the decision of Amer Bisat to leave his role as director of emerging markets on the largest investment fund in the world, Blackrock, to assume a key role in the Lebanese government. It is undoubtedly a great change in his career, but He is not the first person who changes portfolio management for the frontline policy.

In the case of Bisat, after two years of an interim government, Lebanon formed a new government and appointed him Minister of Economy, making him a key figure in the Executive, that will try to get the country out of one of the worst financial crises in the world.

Bisat will be among the team in charge of Prepare a recovery plan to unlock a staging package of US $ 3,000 million of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and supervise financial restructuring (it is worth remembering that Lebanon had difficulties in implementing reforms after the default of 2020).

In this way, Bisat becomes such a disparate list of names that have gone from being for example founders of financial boutiques to public figures, as well as those that lasted only the shortest time in the political arena and fell out of favor before Donald Trump In the process.

Other cases of large fund managers that are passed to politics

Indeed, there are several examples of people who left their comfort zone of the honey and lights of the global financial world to sit in real political “electric chairs”. One of the most emblematic cases, and not very well remembered is that of Kwasi Kwarteng, The chancellor with the shortest mandate of United Kingdom, since he was in office from September 6, 2022 until October 12 of the same year.

Kwarteng presided over a single budget during the equally brief period of Liz Truss as Prime Minister and the Philosophy of the Budget of “Break and start over” It caused such chaos in the financial market that led both to leave their positions in rapid succession. But before occupying his positions in the government, Kwartweng began at the Crispin Odey Boutique Coverage Fund. It is also worth noting that in recent years both he and Odey were involved in several controversies.

Another resonant case is that of Anthony Scaramucci whose career shows from his passage through Goldman Sachs to the launch of his own firm Skybridge, through his participation in a podcast about his slips in the world of investments. Like Kwarteng, Scaramucci even had a brief stop at the top of politics thanks to a completely different error. It is that Scaramucci was hired as Communications Director of the White House for a total of 10 days during the tumultuous era of the first presidential campaign of Trump. Having talked to the New York Times in what he believed it was a conversation in “Off the Record”, Scaramucci’s criticism of Trump’s regime cost him almost as fast as they had given it. Then he returned to the daily management of funds, while he was a firm defender of the anti-trump position, trying to galvanize support for Joe Biden to avoid a second mandate for his former employer.

There is also the case of Neel Kashkari That he dedicates himself more to politics than to portfolio management, but his brief incursion on fund management allowed him to work with a man of influential opinions, the famous “King of Bonds”, Bill Gross (Pimco). Kashkari had worked as the assistant of the Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, during the 2007/08 financial crisis and collaborated in the aid initiatives known as TARP. This happened before a pause in his career and after his transfer to Pimco. He was entrusted with the task of expanding the operations of the famous investor in bonds to the world of shares, which was more complicated than expected, since the first six funds were below their reference indices. Kashkari resigned in early 2013 and returned to politics: first he ran for Governor of California and now serves as head of the Bank of the Federal Reserve of Minneapolis.

Crossing the Atlantic there are cases such as Aivaras Abromavicius That in 2014 one of the three foreigners was appointed who were granted a position in the Ukrainian government, when he was appointed head of the Ministry of Economy. This meant that the Native of Lithuania moved from the East Capital emerging market boutique to assume the position. Abromavicius resigned in 2016, but returned to politics in 2019, when he helped the newly chosen leader Volodymyr Zelensky to organize commerce meetings. However, he resigned in 2020 and now focuses on investments in pensions in Lithuania, among other functions of the Investment Board.

Another that went through the management of funds among other activities is Vivek Ramasswamy, Who after making a name in the field of biotechnology jumped to fame with the launch of the Strive Management Investment House, proudly “anti-woke”. This group was designed to challenge consensus on ESG criteria and draw attention to companies that were considered promoters of sustainability over profitability for shareholders. The group caught attention through an ETF of “old energy” that sought to avoid impulse to the energy transition. The rightly called DRLL quickly exceeded US $ 200 million in assets and is now at US $313 million, according to Citywire Chris Sloley. Ramasswamy resigned from his position to focus on Outsider’s commitment to become president of the United States. Finally, he supported Trump and was rewarded with a brief co -director position with Elon Musk in the government efficiency department.

Returning to the United Kingdom, there is the tandem Jacob Rees-Mogg and Dominic Johnson. It is worth remembering that there was a period around the debates about Brexit in the United Kingdom in which any mention of Somerset Capital was accompanied by a wink to the conservative politic . Rees-Mogg began his career at Lloyd George Management before separating to found Somerset, with some financial support from Crispin Odey. Despite having been in Parliament since the end of the 2000s, Rees-Mogg would rise to fame during the period of Boris Johnson as prime minister. Sloley points out that in an action that reminds the recent adventures of Ramasswamy, Rees-Mogg was briefly in charge of a government efficiency campaign.

After losing his seat in the United Kingdom Parliament in 2024, Rees-Mogg returned to public care with a “reality show” about his family in December of the same year. While Dominic Johnson, who stayed after the departure of Rees-Mogg of Somerset, went to politics in September 2022 and Liz Truss gave him a position focused on international trade. After Rishi Sunak (the successor of Truss) relieved him of his position, Johnson returned to occupy him that same year and is now co -president of the Conservative Party.