ONE of Britain’s richest couples with a £2billion fortune are running a side-hustle from their garden.
Mark and Lindy O’Hare own 80 per cent of data group Prequin through a family holding, but are about to rake in a fortune.
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They are set to snap up a £2billion windfall after agreeing a deal to sell to the world’s biggest assent manager Blackrock for £2.55billion.
The takeover will make the O’Hares richer than F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone and Hargreaves Lansdown founder Peter Hargreaves, who are both worth around £1.8billion.
The remaining £510 million will be divided between employees of the company which is based near London Victoria station.
It means that a lucky few of Preqin’s 1,500 employees, spread across the world’s largest financial hubs from New York to Hong Kong, could also become millionaires in the near future.
But it’s not just successful business the O’Hare’s have a hand in.
The couple made headlines during the pandemic when they built an outdoor theatre in the grounds of their Suffolk farm estate.
The 350-seat theatre, which cost £70,000 to construct, sits inside a Second World War bomb crater.
It was initially created to be a space for local drama groups and amateur actors.
But just like the couple’s other entrepreneurial ideas it quickly became a success.
When lockdown eventually ended, the venue called Thorington Theatre was up and running – with the first audience being welcomed in June 2021.
The theatre is now in its third season of music, theatre, opera, comedy and poetry but has become one of the best-known open-air theatres in Britain.
In an interview with the BBC in 2022, Lindy O’Hare said: “Profit was not the driving force – as long as it’s not a drain on the farm, we’re happy.”
One day the new billionaires hope to host the Royal Shakespeare Company for a production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream.
A local children’s company had performed the play earlier on which was a big hit.
The theatre is open in the warmer months from June to August.
And with the sale of Prequin about to be completed, more money could potentially be invested into their theatre in the woods.
Once the Prequin deal is complete, Mark, who was born in London but raised near Glasgow, and his South African-born wife, will be pushed into the top 100 richest people in Britain.
Mark will join Blackrock as vice chairman after the deal closes.
Founded in 2003, Preqin tracks the performance of private equity firms and hedge funds.
The UK group has nearly 50,000 customers and 16 global offices, according to its website.
Thorington Theatre upcoming events
Here are some of the upcoming events in the coming weeks:
Patience – July 5
Pax Festival – July 6
The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary – July 7
As You Like It – July 11
Night in the Canyon – July 12
Mark started his career at Boston Consulting Group before turning his hand to business in the 1990s.
He set up Citywatch, a shareholder information service, in 1993 before selling it to Reuters five years later.
Lindy O’Hare is South African and studied English at the University of Natal and Contemporary Art at Goldsmiths College.
Prequin is set to post revenues of £190million for 2024.
Cambridge-educated O’Hare was chief executive before he stepped down in 2022 while his wife worked at the firm until 2008.
