Michael Lewis

Michael Lewis (born 27 January 1959) is a director of the South African retailer Foschini Ltd. He is also the founder of the Israeli biotech company ProChon Biotech Limited.

The Lewis Family and Business Background

Michael Lewis is the son of the Stanley and Zea Lewis (née Theadora). His paternal grandfather, the Latvian-born Meyer Lewis, established a furniture company in Cape Town in 1934 which in 1946 was listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. For several decades Michael Lewis’s late father, Stanley Lewis, controlled the South African clothing retailer Foschini and the Israeli travel company Paltours (which was originally a subsidiary of the Jewish Colonial Trust).

Stanley Lewis moved from Cape Town to London in 1986 where he established the family’s investment vehicle Oceana Investment Corporation, probably best known in the UK for its attempted takeover of the Etam clothing chain in 1992. Michael Lewis joined Oceana Investment Corporation in 1987 having worked as a fund manager in Edinburgh and London and from that point jointly managed the family’s business interests with his father.

Today the Lewis family’s substantial wealth, which is held via trusts and offshore companies, is managed by Michael Lewis and his business associate David Sable, a fellow South African. Lewis and Sable run a London based investment advisory firm, Oceana Investment Partners, which manages the approximately £8 million of assets held by the family’s UK holdings company Oceana Investment Corporation as well as approximately £38 million worth of assets held by the Jersey incorporated Oceana Concentrated Opportunities Fund Ltd. The Jersey Fund has significant stakes in the African furniture company, the Lewis Group (founded by Lewis’s grandfather), the UK property companies Max Property Group plc and Berkeley Group Holdings plc, and the UK merchant bank United Trust Bank, where Michael Lewis serves as a director. The Fund has also committed £5.9 million to Synova Capital, a private equity fund in which Poju Zabludowicz is the main investor.

The Oceana Concentrated Opportunities Fund formerly invested approximately a third of its funds in the pro-Israel German media company Axel Springer, where Michael Lewis is still a member of the Supervisory Board. The shares were purchased from Friede Springer, the widow of the company’s founder who is friends with Michael Lewis and with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The Lewis family has supported other pro-Israel organisations in the UK in addition to BICOM. The family’s charitable foundation, the Stanley & Zea Lewis Family Foundation, donated a total of £193,239 to the United Jewish Israel Appeal between April 2009 and March 2011 and in 2011 pledged £3 million to the University of Oxford to fund the appointment of a Professor of Israel Studies. Michael Lewis, who is a trustee of the family foundation, was a director of the United Jewish Israel Appeal from September 2001 to October 2007.

Michael Lewis is also chairman of the London-based think tank, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), having joined as a trustee in 2005. The ISD was founded by its President, the veteran Zionist Lord Weidenfeld. It grew out of the Club of Three, an elite policy forum bringing together powerful figures from business and politics in France, Germany and the UK. The Institute jointly organises an annual event called the European-Israeli Dialogue with Axel Springer, the Jerusalem Foundation and the Portland Trust. It also sponsors research on ‘extremism’ and radicalisation’.

BICOM - donor and former vice chair

Michael Lewis served as a director of BICOM between September 2006 and December 2007. During his time he was reportedly the organisation's vice-chairman and is known to have donated a total of £25,000. He has said that he has had no involvement in BICOM since 2007, but has confirmed he remains a donor.

Liam Fox and Atlantic Bridge

In October 2005, Defence Secretary Liam Fox flew to the United States with five newly elected MPs - Mark Harper, John Penrose, Brooks Newmark, Adam Holloway and Philip Dunne. In the register of members interests, all the MPs said their flights and accomodation had been paid for using a donation from Michael Lewis.

In a clarification in October 2011 The Guardian said it had incorrectly stated that Lewis had arranged a trip in 2009 to a security seminar in Israel for Liam Fox's friend Adam Werritty. "Mr Lewis... remains a donor to Bicom but has never had involvement in Mr Werritty's travel arrangements".

Lewis has donated £13,832 to Fox's defunct Atlantic Bridge charity.

Affiliations

• Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre former deputy chairman.
• Institute for Strategic Dialogue - Chairman
• United Trust Bank Limited - director
• Axel Springer AG - Supervisory board member
• Weidenfeld Scholarships and Leadership Programme -co-chair
• Atlantic Bridge - former donor
• Stanley and Zea Lewis Family Foundation - Trustee

Connections

• Liam Fox - 2005 Conservative leadership campaign donor

External resources

• Tim Shipman, Christian Gysin and Ian Drury, Tycoons who funded Fox's friend: Right-wing donors paid the bills for pair's globetrotting, dailymail.co.uk, 13 October 2011.

Charity trusteeships

Charity trusteeships

Charity	Role	From	To	Source
United Jewish Israel Appeal (1060078)	Director (trustee)	13 September 2001	11 October 2007
Stanley and Zea Lewis Family Foundation (1021805)	Trustee	23 December 1992	–

Companies

Companies House lists the following appointments for Michael Lewis.

Appointments at Companies House

Company	Number	Role	Appointed	Resigned	Company status
Tfg Brands (London) Limited	09379971	Director	8 January 2015	15 January 2015	Active
Dress Holdco A Limited	09379986	Director	8 January 2015	23 January 2018	Active
Dress Holdco C Limited	09380036	Director	8 January 2015	15 January 2015	Active
Dress Holdco 4 Limited	09365004	Director	22 December 2014	15 January 2015	Active
Dress Holdco 3 Limited	09364376	Director	22 December 2014	–	Dissolved
Oceana Retail Limited	06639848	Director	7 July 2008	–	Dissolved
Britain Israel Communications & Research Centre	04204458	Director	6 September 2006	3 December 2007	Active
United Jewish Israel Appeal	03295115	Director	13 September 2001	11 October 2007	Active
Cheyne Capital Management Limited	03883707	Director	28 July 2000	24 December 2012	Active
Tammy (Girlswear) Limited	00755570	Director	31 October 1995	29 April 1998	Dissolved
Oic 07178 Limited	00036515	Director	before 1992	–	Dissolved

Links to Israel and the IDF

Michael Lewis is recorded as a trustee of United Jewish Israel Appeal (from 13 September 2001 to 11 October 2007). Support relevant to the Israel Defense Forces documented in the charity's records: unrestricted grants to Israeli Scouts Western Europe, operator of Garin Tzabar Europe; promotion of gap years with an optional Marva course; bursaries for Bnei Akiva gap-year and mechina programmes.

Michael Lewis is recorded as a trustee of Stanley and Zea Lewis Family Foundation (from 23 December 1992). Details of the charity's support relevant to the Israel Defense Forces are set out on the Stanley and Zea Lewis Family Foundation page.

Notes on identity matching

The Companies House record is linked because the officer appears on the officer list of the charity's own company, under a matching name (born January 1959). Name as on the Charity Commission register: MICHAEL LEWIS. The Companies House officer record (born January 1959) holds the United Jewish Israel Appeal directorship (September 2001 to October 2007) and the Britain Israel Communications & Research Centre directorship (2006–07) described on this page, which gives his date of birth as 27 January 1959. The Charity Commission lists a Michael Lewis as a trustee of the Stanley and Zea Lewis Family Foundation since 23 December 1992; this page already records him as a trustee of that foundation. Both trusteeships are treated here as the same person.