Legatum Institute

The Legatum Institute is a London-based 'international think tank'.

It says its work is focused on 'understanding, measuring, and explaining the journey from poverty to prosperity for individuals, communities, and nations'.

It is funded by a Dubai-based hedge fund controlled by Christopher Chandler, an intensely private billionaire originally from New Zealand.

Legatum is advocating a 'hard' Brexit.

Brexit influence

Legatum told the Times that it had never been anti-EU, merely the “best possible Brexit”. However, its Director of Economic Policy, Shanker Singham, has taken a 'hard' Brexit position.

Singham is a vocal advocate of Britain leaving the European single market and customs union; he advocates unilaterally slashing some of our tariffs to let in cheaper exports (a move which would destroy the UK's small farmers); and proposes the setting up a giant free-trade zone of “like-minded nations” including Singapore, Switzerland and the US.

Singham has become one of the most influential figures in forging Britain’s post-Brexit trade policy, according to the Times. He holds regular meetings with Brexit secretary David Davis and international trade secretary Liam Fox, promoting his vision of a liberalised Britain pursuing free trade around the globe.

In June 2017, he was also a guest of Brexit minister at the Foreign Office's country pile, Chevening House, which was attended by 33 of the UK's business leaders. Singham was the only 'think tanker' present.

Since early 2017, it has also employed former CEO of the Vote Leave campaign, Matthew Elliott.

Special Trade Commission

In the wake of the Brexit vote, Legatum set up a Special Trade Commission. Its aim is to 'present a roadmap' for the UK's trade negotiations, which must be 'expansive'; and 're-focus the public discussion on Brexit to a positive conversation on opportunities, rather than challenges'.

Special Trade Commission members

The commission is an all-male line-up:

• Shanker Singham, Chair of the Legatum Institute Special Trade Commission; see below for more.
• Alden Abbott, Deputy Director and Senior Legal Fellow at Heritage Foundation
• Francisco Sanchez, former Under Secretary for International Trade at the U.S. Department of Commerce (under Obama); chair of CNS Global Advisors; also serves in senior positions for two private equity funds
• Grant Aldonas, former Under Secretary for International Trade at the U.S. Department of Commerce (under Bush); adviser to Center for Strategic and International Studies; founder-MD of Split Rock International, a Washington-based trade and investment consulting firm
• John Weekes, former Canadian NAFTA negotiator and ex-official in the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade; adviser at the Canadian law firm Bennett Jones; on the board of the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute, which helps address key challenges faced by the Canadian agri-food industry.
• Luis de la Calle, former Undersecretary of International Business Negotiations, Ministry of Economy in Mexico; founder-MD of De la Calle, Madrazo, & Mancera (CMM); he was an adviser from 2012 to Hill and Knowlton Latin America.
• Alan Oxley, MD of ITS Global, Consultants on Global Issues, Australia; former Australian diplomat
• Lockwood Smith, former New Zealand diplomat who was NZ High Commissioner
• Razeen Sally, academic and adviser to governments, business and international organisations, with a research focus on trade policy in Asia, the WTO and preferential trade agreements. He is chair of Sri Lankan Institute of Policy Studies, adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and co-Director of the European Centre for International Political Economy think tank based in Brussels. He is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society.

Special Trade Commission staff

• Victoria Hewson, Senior Counsel, Special Trade Commission
• Dr Radomir Tylecote, Senior Research Analyst, Special Trade Commission

People

• Baroness Philippa Stroud, CEO
• Shanker Singham, Director of Economic Policy and Prosperity Studies
• Cristina Odone, Director of the Centre for Cultural Transformation
• Nathan Gamester, Chief Operating Officer
• Alastair Masser, Director of Communications

Senior fellows

• Matthew Elliott, Senior Fellow
• Danny Kruger, Senior Fellow
• Stephen Brien, Senior Fellow
• James Sproule, Senior Fellow
• Nicola Cobbold, Senior Fellow

Former staff

• Iqbal Quadir - the centre’s executive director is the founder of GrameenPhone, a profit-making company that provides universal cellphone access in Bangladesh.

Funding

Legatum says on its website that it is funded - its staff and premises in Mayfair - 'by the generosity of our founders through the Legatum Foundation'. This is the 'development arm' of the Legatum Group, the Dubai-based hedge fund of New Zealander Christopher Chandler.

According to Private Eye

With his brother Richard, [Christopher Chandler] turned a family inheritance of $10m into $5bn... The Chandlers’ Sovereign Global Investment made money by finding undervalued assets the rest of market ignored, Richard explained – “transition economies or distressed sectors where information is not easily available and standard metrics don’t apply”. Sovereign was one of the first funds to pile into Brazil when the country opened to outside investors in 1991. It moved into Russia after the collapse of communism, and bought up assets in Japan and Korea during the banking crisis of the early 2000s.'

Affiliations

According to libertarian activist Simon Clark, Legatum is affiliated to the Liberty League, whose purpose is "to help inform, recruit and develop supporters of liberty", among students.

Resources

• New York Times article regarding Legatum Center at MIT (September 2007)