A Labour Donor's Hedge Fund Has Been Buying UK Private Hospital Shares

Martin Taylor founded Crake Asset Management in 2019. By 2024 he had become one of the largest individual donors to the Labour ecosystem in Britain. By the Electoral Commission’s register he has given more than £700,000 directly to the Labour Party. Reporting by The Ferret and Democracy For Sale documents a further £1 million-plus given to Labour Together, a separate think tank closely linked to the senior Labour leadership.

Crake’s regulatory filings show the fund has invested heavily in private healthcare on both sides of the Atlantic. Crake’s first-quarter 2023 13F filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission disclosed a $123 million position in UnitedHealth Group, the largest private health insurer in the world. The position was reduced over the course of 2023 and 2024 and was largely divested by the time of the UK general election in July 2024.

Crake’s investment focus on UK private healthcare has, however, increased since Labour took office. The Ferret reports that the fund has bought more than £8 million of shares in HCA Healthcare since July 2024. HCA Healthcare is the United States’ largest hospital chain and operates the largest network of private hospitals in the UK.

Under Labour, then-Health Secretary Wes Streeting publicly signalled an expanded role for the private sector in delivering NHS services. (Streeting resigned as Health Secretary on 14 May 2026, after the local elections.) The trade press in 2025 documented increased referrals of NHS patients to private capacity, although the Department of Health and Social Care has not published a comprehensive breakdown of new contract awards by provider.

Every figure on this page is sourced from a public record. The £700K Labour Party donation total and the £1M-plus Labour Together total are from the Electoral Commission donation register and Companies House filings, as compiled by The Ferret and Democracy For Sale. The $123M UnitedHealth Group position is from Crake Asset Management’s Q1 2023 13F filing on SEC EDGAR. The £8M-plus HCA Healthcare share purchase total since July 2024 is from The Ferret’s reporting on Crake’s published holdings.

Labour Tracker does not allege that any named individual or company entered into any agreement, arrangement or understanding to provide policy outcomes, contracts, or any other benefit in exchange for political donations or investment positions. The donations are on record. The investment positions are on record. Readers may draw their own inferences.

There are questions readers may reasonably ask of their elected representatives. Were donations from individuals with disclosed financial interests in private healthcare considered in framing NHS outsourcing decisions? What due-diligence steps are taken to ensure no actual or perceived conflict of interest where ministers responsible for NHS commissioning receive support from donors invested in NHS-adjacent private providers? Is there a published breakdown of the value of NHS contracts awarded to private hospital chains since July 2024? These are matters of legitimate public interest and the relevant ministers should be able to answer them on the public record.