Hedge fund billionaire Chris Rokos joins UK wealth exodus
The hedge fund billionaire Chris Rokos has joined the ranks of ultra-wealthy residents in leaving the UK, in a decision likely to cost the government billions of pounds lost tax revenue.
Rokos, the founder of his namesake investment firm Rokos Capital Management who paid more than £300m in tax last year alone, is leaving the UK for Greece.
His departure for Athens, reported in Bloomberg, follows the Mediterranean country introducing new rules allowing wealthy foreigners to pay a flat annual tax of around 100,000 euros, which comes to around £86,000, on all overseas income.
The Eton and Oxford-educated investor’s departure means the Exchequer could miss out on some £330m each year, based on the Sunday Times Rich List’s estimation of his last UK tax bill. He paid the third most tax of any individual in the UK, according to the same Sunday Times study, and boasts an estimated net worth of more than £2bn.
He joins a number of billionaires and centimillionaires to have left the UK in recent years, having been targeted at consecutive Budgets.
In 2025, Morning Wire revealed that Goldman Sachs vice president Richard Gnodde left the UK in response to the government’s crackdown on non doms.
Other wealthy investors to have ditched the UK include Aston Villa co-owner Nassef Sawiris, Checkout.com founder Guillaume Pousaz and the steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal.
Wealth exodus deepens
The Labour government since 2024 has come under fire from top City investors over its stance on the rich, with tax rises blamed for causing a wealth exodus.
The government has ended the non-dom regime allowing wealthy foreigners to avoid paying tax on income earned outside of the UK, scrapped a VAT exemption on private schools, increased capital gains tax rates and announced a plan to impose a new levy on mansions.
Andy Burnham said in an interview he wanted wealth creators to stay although he has faced questions over his stance on taxing the rich. Chancellor John Healey also said he supported wealth creation in the UK in a speech on the UK economy on Monday.
Scores of Labour MPs have publicly endorsed a wealth tax, which would add a two per cent annual levy on assets valued at £10m.
Tax experts and economists have warned a wealth tax would deter investment and lead to lost revenue, with administration costs across Whitehall also racking up.
A more likely tax hike at the Budget could be on capital gains as cabinet minister Wes Streeting said a higher levy would represent a “wealth tax that works”.
Conservative Party campaigners have argued that a higher tax rate on capital gains, with the higher rate currently standing at 22 per cent, would actually lose the Treasury revenue as investors would choose to sit on their assets until the rate came back down.
Record amounts of capital gains tax were recorded in the 2024/25 tax year, reaching £127bn, an 82 per cent increase from the prior year.
Simon French, chief economist at Panmure Liberum, said: “The dynamic, behavioural effects of policy are more significant with capital gains taxes than almost any other part of the tax system.
“The latest data pours cold water on the idea that there is a pot of recurring tax revenue to go for here.”
Rokos Capital Management declined to comment. The Treasury was also approached for comment.