Hargreaves Lansdown founder Peter Hargreaves has made a personal donation of £1m to the Conservative Party ahead of the general election.
Data from the Electoral Commission shows the businessman donated the money in the period between November 20 and November 26, the most recent set of figures published by the commission.
In that week the Conservatives raised £3.5m, meaning Mr Hargreaves's donation accounted for 28 per cent of the total received by the party in that period.
The Labour party received about £500,000 in the same time period. The figures only account for donations above £7,500.
Mr Hargreaves is a long-term advocate of the UK leaving the EU, and had donated £3.2m to the Brexit campaign.
He previously told FTAdviser that the best outcome of Brexit would be leaving the EU with a deal, but that no deal would be better than extending the Article 50 process. The process has been extended twice as it stands.
Mr Hargreaves is no longer a director of Hargreaves Lansdown. The donation was made on a personal basis and has no connection to the firm or to Blue Whale Capital, the asset management firm he co-founded and of which he remains chairman.
Mr Hargreaves retains a 32 per cent stake in Hargreaves Lansdown. The firm's most recent set of accounts showed he received dividends of £64m in the last financial year.
His wealth was most recently estimated by the Sunday Times at £3.2bn. The newspaper estimated that Mr Hargreaves, who lives in Somerset, paid £35.6m in income tax in the 2017/18 tax year.
david.thorpe@ft.com
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