‘King of the geeks’: Maths whiz hands himself a $1.4 billion payday

Britain’s biggest taxpayer has paid himself a record £682 million ($1.42 billion) after a surge in profits at his high-tech trading firm.

Alex Gerko, the Russian-born mathematician behind London-based XTX Markets, took home the lion’s share of a £1.28 billion profit split between 31 partners last year.

Gerko, 46, is one of Britain’s wealthiest people, with a personal fortune of £12 billion last year, according to The Sunday Times Rich List.

He is believed to be Britain’s biggest single individual taxpayer, contributing £665 million in 2023 alone.

Gerko has been dubbed “king of the geeks” because his small trading firm’s computer science expertise and sophisticated algorithms gave it a modest but lucrative edge when trading billions of dollars every hour.

He founded the company in 2015, having moved to London from Moscow to work at Deutsche Bank.

Gerko renounced his Russian citizenship in 2022 after Russia President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and his company has given tens of millions of dollars to Ukrainian charities.

XTX Markets uses huge numbers of cutting-edge Nvidia chips at a supercomputer in Iceland to predict financial markets with pinpoint accuracy, allowing it to undercut rival trading firms when handling $US250 billion.

Gerko’s ethical endeavours

Gerko owns 75 per cent of the company and has used his wealth to pursue a series of philanthropic endeavours.

This includes a string of maths schools after he became dismayed at the state of British education in the subject, as well as conservation efforts, and the London Symphony Orchestra.

He owns a 150-acre estate in the Chiltern Hills, previously owned by the philanthropist Lady Helen Hamlyn, which has been dubbed the Teletubby House for its sunken appearance in the surrounding hillside.

He has also invested in leading artificial intelligence companies, including the Silicon Valley firm Anthropic and British driverless car start-up Wayve.

‘I am very happy to pay a ton of taxes.’

Alex Gerko

Gerko is known for putting forthright opinions on social media.

He deleted his X account last year, but frequently posts on LinkedIn, criticising Britain’s online safety laws and the BBC’s coverage of the war in Gaza.

“The UK will soon have about as much freedom of speech as Russia if we don’t stop this”, he wrote last month.

Gerko has also supported a wealth tax, claiming: “I am very happy to pay a ton of taxes.”

Last year, he lost a legal case alongside employees at his former hedge fund, GSA Capital, over how payments to partners were taxed between 2010 and 2015.

HMRC, the British tax authority, had said the payouts should be taxed at income tax rates rather than corporation tax levels. Gerko said this amounted to “massive double taxation”.

He said: “The amounts involved are small compared to the billions of pounds in tax I have paid, and been happy to pay, over the years.”

The case is now being taken to the Supreme Court.

The Telegraph, London

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