Chief Executive Interview: Hugh Hendry

CHIEF EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW

Hugh Hendry is not one to mince his words. The outspoken hedge fund specialist, formerly a partner at Odey and more recently a co-founder of investment boutique Eclectica, has previously appeared on Newsnight and presented a Channel 4 documentary on the banking crisis. Here he explains why he has been punished for good performance, why China could be the next Japan, and why he would insure you against the UK defaulting on its sovereign debt

Do you think China is a bubble waiting to burst? I fear it could be, because it has not demonstrated an ability to create wealth. It has demonstrated an ability to create GDP growth, which is a function of spending money. The priority of economic management at the macro level should be to have a high re-occurring level of household disposable income, which manifests itself in a high level of consumption as a percentage of GDP. The scorecard for China using that metric is really bottom of the class. Over the last 30 years, that ratio has almost halved and we are talking about consumpti...