They had about 2% of their investment in arms companies, almost all of which were based in the US and would have been entirely unaffected by UK sanctions on Israel. The $100m or so was mostly in large companies with myriad business streams and I doubt their share price would drop by 1% even if the US banned arms exports to Israel. So they simply can't get a return on their £4m donation via this route. It has to have been made for a different reason.
Considering Starmer's blunt refusal to stop arms sales in Commons last week, the two are very clearly intertwined
I doubt Starmer even knows what is in their current portfolio so I'm sure his decision is unrelated. I reckon it's more related to the @PleaseNotPoll post. He is terrified that Labour will be painted as antisemitic if he stops helping Israel and also thinks that any UK action will have no real effect while reducing our influence with the US. It's also possible that he thinks destroying Hamas and Hizbollah are worth the collateral damage. I disagree on all these points but they are a million times more likely than he is trying to help Quadrature
Considering how keenly aware he is of Novo Holdings' portfolio, given he's all for having Ozempic jabbed into jobseekers after they bunged him £50k, claiming he wouldn't know the portfolio of somebody who just so happens to be profiting from his blunt refusal to stop selling arms to Israel is a particularly naïve position to take
You haven't demonstrated this, though You made the assumption that because they won't make 100% of their money back they fail, when the reality is that they succeed if Starmer waves through one shipment - and he's waved through more than one And this is before any questions about who else they have possibly given bungs to to keep the genocidal gravy train going
Meanwhile, remember how Trump keeps accusing the Democrats of cheating? Obviously this is a different kind of election interference...
If you think the £4m is a 'bung' to protect 2% of their portfolio then do you think they are paying £200m to protect the whole lot? And if it's so easy how about the hundreds of investment managers who own much larger and more concentrated portfolios of arms dealers...where are their bungs going? £4m is around 5% of the value of their arms related portfolio and their growth return will be around that. They would be bonkers to invest their whole return in a bribe.
Which is why I suggested widening the scope beyond Starmer For two reasons, actually: one to see who else are getting bungs, and also to see what the price of those bungs is out of curiosity to see if Starmer is accepting a fraction of what is being offered to Biden, the Eu et al
