A former Carlyle Group Inc. executive is wielding more power at a firm managing the fortune of Rupert Murdoch’s eldest daughter after the departure of senior investment staff.
Mike Ramsay, who joined the family office of Prudence MacLeod in an advisory role during the pandemic, has recently taken on money management duties helping oversee its multibillion-dollar portfolio, said people familiar with the matter and company filings.
Ramsay, 57, Carlyle’s onetime global head of leveraged finance, joined Prudence’s husband, Alasdair MacLeod, as a director of Macdoch’s London branch in October and gained regulatory approval to manage investments the same month, registry filings show.
Julian Sinclair, Macdoch’s chief investment officer since 2020, and private markets executive Thomas Fitzmaurice left between July and September, filings show. The firm has since sought to hire additional investment staff for its London branch, said people familiar with the plans, who asked not to be identified discussing private information.
Ramsay and a Macdoch representative didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Macdoch’s staffing shake-up provides a rare insight into one of the London’s biggest family offices. The firm, which doesn’t disclose assets under management, helps oversee Prudence’s proceeds from Rupert Murdoch’s offloading media assets to Walt Disney Co. six years ago for $71 billion. Its investments include listed stocks, credit and private equity.
Prudence, 66, and two of her siblings — Elisabeth, 56, and James, 52 — recently fought their father’s efforts to change a family trust. Rupert, who turns 94 this month, lost his bid in December to alter a Nevada trust to favor his eldest son, Lachlan, 53, and give him greater control over a media empire that includes Fox News and The Wall Street Journal.
Rupert, who has a net worth of about $12.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, is appealing the decision.
Ramsay, a British native who joined Macdoch in 2021 and served on its investment advisory committee until October, recently took on a role as executive vice chair, according to his LinkedIn profile. He covered leveraged finance at Royal Bank of Scotland before taking on similar roles at M&G PLC and Carlyle, where he worked for about six years. He later became a partner at Generation Investment Management, a London-based company co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore.
Other London executives at Macdoch include finance director Davinder Chatha and UK family office head John Thorpe. Macdoch also has a Sydney office and operations spanning venture capital, philanthropy and agricultural investments in Rupert Murdoch’s native Australia.