New York move for Lord Turner as FSA is abolished

FINANCIAL Services Authority chairman Lord Turner – recently considered for the post of governor of the Bank of England – is to work with billionaire investor George Soros after he steps down from Britain’s financial regulator on its abolition today.

Turner’s move will raise eyebrows as Soros, also a renowned philanthropist, made $1 billion (£65.8m) by betting on Britain’s ignominious exit from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) in September 1992.

On what became known as Black Wednesday, and which largely destroyed the then-Conservative government’s reputation for financial competence, the Bank of England lost £1bn of reserves trying to prop up sterling to keep it in the ERM.

Turner is to join the Institute for New Economic Thinking, a New York-based think-tank set up by Soros with an initial endowment of $50m (£33m) in 2009. The appointment is expected to be announced this week.

The job of governor of the BoE, to replace Sir Mervyn King on 1 July this year, went to Bank of Canada’s Mark Carney.