‘A Huge Mistake’: Angermayer Slams UK Wealth Tax Plan After Exit

(Bloomberg) — Christian Angermayer has left England for a Swiss crypto hub over the UK’s plans to raise taxes on affluent residents’ offshore wealth, the latest sign of turmoil among Britain’s rich elite.

The cryptocurrency, biotech and psychedelics investor moved this month from London to the city of Lugano, he said in a statement to Bloomberg. In Lugano, individuals and businesses can settle bills in Bitcoin or the Tether stablecoin.

Angermayer, 46, a German native who lived in the UK for the past decade, also explored relocating to New York and Dubai and was a so-called non-dom during his time in Britain, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. That status allowed him to avoid UK taxes on his overseas income and earnings for as long as 15 years. Claimants are initially able to benefit from the preferential treatment at no cost, though they eventually face annual charges of £60,000 ($80,000) if they keep living in Britain under the current regime.

“Every non-dom I know has left or is about to leave,” Angermayer said.

‘Huge Mistake’

Britain’s main political parties took aim at the non-domiciled resident population — which ranges from top City of London bankers to multibillionaires — as they looked to raise extra funds to spend on voters ahead of July’s general election.

In March, the then-Conservative government bowed to pressure by requiring non-doms to pay tax on overseas income after living in the UK for four years instead of the current 15. But Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party wants to go further, pledging ahead of its landslide election victory in July to eliminate inheritance tax breaks on assets held in overseas trusts.

That policy is especially spooking non-doms, many of whom are likely vulnerable to Labour’s other plans to hike taxes for private equity investments, and private school fees that can already cost more than £55,000 a year. Super-rich UK nationals are also exploring leaving the country, increasing the risk of a wealth exodus that could put a dent in Labour’s spending plans for next month’s budget.

“The planned changes to the non-dom framework are a huge mistake,” Angermayer said, calling them a “potentially a bigger act of national self-harm than Brexit.”

UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves is now mulling tweaks to the reforms amid growing concerns on their impact, Bloomberg News reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. Starmer called reports of an impending exodus of non-doms “alarmist” in an interview with CNBC on Friday, and said his administration “will get the balance right” when it comes to changes in the program.

A Treasury spokesperson declined to comment.

Varied Investments

Angermayer moved to London from Germany about a decade after merging his first company, Ribopharma AG, with a US rival in 2003. He’s gone on in the past two decades to invest in everything from life-extension therapies to brain-computer chips to space tech.

Along the way, he cultivated relationships with global leaders as well as influential investors like Peter Thiel. The PayPal Holdings Inc. co-founder is now backing one of Angermayer’s latest bets on an alternative competition to the Olympics where performance-enhancing drugs are encouraged.

In London, Angermayer most recently lived in a penthouse furnished with a triceratops skull and statues of Egyptian gods, located about a mile from the UK branch of his family office, Apeiron Investment Group. The firm oversees more than $2.5 billion in assets and mostly manages its own capital, according to its website.

Apeiron will continue to have a London office, the person with knowledge of the matter said, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. At least a half-dozen people work in London for Apeiron, which also has offices in New York, Malta and Abu Dhabi, according to LinkedIn data.

Switzerland has long been a lure for the world’s super-rich due its political stability, high-standards of living and strict privacy laws. It also offers preferential tax treatment for wealthy individuals moving to the country. UK hedge fund billionaire Alan Howard is currently exploring a move there, while British private equity tycoon Jeremy Coller already relocated earlier this year.

Angermayer’s new home city in Switzerland is an Italian-speaking financial hub long popular with Italians looking to park money beyond their home borders. A crackdown on Italian tax evasion has quashed that trend in recent years, however, prompting the city to look for other ways to bring in wealth.

Tether Holdings, which issues the world’s most widely adopted stablecoin, began hosting an annual Bitcoin-themed conference in Lugano after partnering with local authorities in 2022 to make the city’s payment systems more crypto-friendly. Switzerland has also become an appealing jurisdiction for crypto businesses seeking access to Europe while avoiding strict new rules governing digital assets in the European Union that go into effect next year.

Angermayer holds a number of blockchain investments, including crypto miner Northern Data AG and Samara Asset Group Plc, an investor and adviser to blockchain-based businesses. He introduced Tether to Northern Data prior to the stablecoin company taking a significant stake in the business in 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported last month. Tether also holds an investment in another of Angermayer’s bets, Utah-based biotechnology company Blackrock Neurotech.

–With assistance from Mark Bergen and Joe Mayes.

(Updates with Starmer’s comment in ninth paragraph.)

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.