TCI Founder Degorce Retires

Patrick Degorce, a founder and top partner at activist hedge fund shop The Children’s Investment Fund Management, has left the London-based firm.

Degorce has retired from TCI and as of Jan. 1 is no longer a member of the limited liability partnership, according to media reports.

A former European equities chief at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, Degorce co-founded TCI in 2003 with Christopher Hohn. He focused on TCI’s financial services investments, including its activist battles with Deutsche Börse and ABN Amro, which aroused the ire of regulators in Europe.

Degorce’s departure comes at the end of TCI’s most difficult year since it was founded in 2003. The fund lost about 43% in 2008.