(Bloomberg) -- Gina Miller isn't afraid of making enemies. After more than 20 years in finance, she's made a few. When her opponents start throwing personal insults at her, “you know what you are saying is the right thing,” she says.
Now, as the lead plaintiff in the landmark court challenge to the British government's Brexit plans, she's attracted fierce criticism from Leave campaigners, as well as racist and sexist abuse online. She says she finds the level of emotion around Britain's impending exit from the European Union “disturbing.”
But Miller, a Guyana-born former model who trained as a lawyer, has courted controversy before. In 2009, she started an investment firm with her husband Alan Miller, who was dubbed “Mr. Hedge Fund” by the British press. Since then, the couple has picked fights with regulators, fund-management companies and charities.
The bad news for Prime Minister Theresa May and her lawyers: Gina Miller often comes out on top.
On Dec. 5, the U.K. Supreme Court will hear a legal challenge by Gina Miller and other claimants including Welsh and Scottish politicians, a hairdresser and Britons living abroad. It's the most important constitutional case of modern British times. The challengers say the government can't formally start its European exit without first holding a vote in parliament. May wants to avoid that and trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty by the end of March.
That the 51-year-old is one of the few to attach her name publicly to the Brexit case -- most of the other participants requested anonymity -- won't be a surprise to anyone familiar with SCM Direct, the London-based firm she runs with her husband.
‘Raised Profile'
“If you look at the things that Gina does, I am amazed at how much energy she has got and is now taking on the U.K. government in her spare time,” said David Norman, the former chief executive officer of Credit Suisse Group AG asset management in the U.K. and Ireland who now runs TCF Investment. The case “has definitely raised the profile of Gina Miller.”
In 2015, she published a report criticizing charities for not spending enough of the money they raise on good causes, calling the industry “out of control.” Charity groups hit back that her report was flawed and unfair.
She and her husband, who used to run hedge funds at Jupiter Fund Management Plc and New Star Investment Trust Plc, have spent years attacking hidden fees charged by managers. SCM markets itself as being fully transparent.
Concealed Charges
In April, Gina Miller said it was a “travesty” that regulators hadn't taken action on concealed charges. The couple considers the recent Financial Conduct Authority report on a lack of competition in the asset-management sector to be a vindication of their campaign.
One thing the couple won't talk about is how much money they manage. Some of the firm's competitors don't publish that information, and, in any case, SCM doesn't work like a conventional money manager, Alan Miller said. Its investors have individual segregated portfolios that use his models.
“You can push all you want,” the 53 year old said when asked about the subject in a joint interview with his wife. “The answer is going to stay the same.”
Based on SCM's reported revenue from fees, however, the firm may have less than 100 million pounds ($125 million) in assets.
Established Players
The Millers started SCM in 2009, three years after Alan left the hedge-fund world, because they couldn't find a transparent and liquid way to manage their own money among the industry's established players.
Alan Miller, who had a reputation as a star stock picker, now invests almost entirely in low-cost exchange-traded funds, trading only when necessary, a strategy he says is both passive and active. “Some months we may not make any changes at all,” he said.
SCM Direct says it is the first company to publish all its fees upfront, charging clients between 1.2 percent and 1.3 percent a year, which includes an annual management fee and trading costs.
For proponents of transparency, the firm's unwillingness to disclose assets and the lack of independent data on performance has riled competitors and is at odds with the mutual-fund industry, which can easily be tracked by third-party research firms such as Morningstar Inc. Gina Miller said the firm has never signed up to or relied on third-party ratings.
To invest in any of its funds, clients have to largely rely on SCM's own data, which are updated on a monthly basis. The SCM Bond Reserve Portfolio, for example, is up 39 percent since inception in 2011 and 17.6 percent year-to-date, according to the latest fact sheet.
‘Word of Mouth'
The couple hasn't done much in the way of advertising.
“We've gone out and tried to get people through word of mouth or intellectual debate in the press,” Gina Miller said. SCM has lost money every year since its creation, according to its public filings. It lost about 440,000 pounds in 2014-15 because, she said, of the cost of setting up three new online platforms. They expect to turn a profit this year.
“We are already hovering around break-even,” Alan Miller said.
Gina Miller said SCM hasn't seen significant inflows or outflows of money since she became the public face of the Brexit opposition, although two potential clients told her they wouldn't invest because of “poor judgment.”
“The British people, actually they don't like disruptors,” she said. “People are very cautious.”
Not that popularity bothers her.
“We are not interested in what industry incumbents or other people think,” she said.
Meanwhile, Gina Miller continues to divide opinion inside and outside of the investment world. Britain's anti-Europe tabloid press has given her a particularly rough time.
After she won the first round in the legal battle last month, The Sun, part of Rupert Murdoch's newspaper empire, called Gina Miller a “foreign-born millionaire” who “may have sabotaged Britain's Brexit deal.”
“It's a very brave thing to do,” John Spiers, the chief executive officer of financial advisor EQ Investors, said about the Brexit lawsuit. “She's a ballsy lady, you have got to give her that.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Kit Chellel in London at cchellel@bloomberg.net, Sarah Jones in London at sjones35@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net, Neil Callanan at ncallanan@bloomberg.net, Eddie Buckle
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