Sir Michael Lawrence Davis is a British politician and former South African businessman, former Chief Executive and Treasurer of the Conservative Party and the chief executive of Xstrata plc, an Anglo-Swiss multinational mining company, until its merger with Glencore in 2013. After leaving Xstrata, he formed the mining venture X2 Resources and, after making substantial donations, became the CEO and Treasurer of the British Conservative Party – a post he held until 24 July 2019.
Davis was a senior manager with the accountants Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co from 1980 to 1986. Davis was an executive director of the South African state-owned Eskom, one of the world’s largest electricity utilities, before joining Gencor Ltd in 1994. He served as executive chairman of Ingwe Coal Corporation Ltd from 1995, until appointed in July 1997 as Chief Financial Officer and an executive director of Billiton plc. He served as Chief Executive of Xstrata from 2001 but left in 2013, after the company was taken over by Glencore. He subsequently formed the mining venture, X2 Resources, with former colleagues including former Xstrata finance director Trevor Reid and executives Thras Moraitis, Andrew Latham, Ian Pearce and Benny Levene. Davis has extensive capital markets and corporate transactions experience. During his career, he has raised almost US$40 billion from global capital markets and completed over US$120 billion of corporate transactions. Some of his successes are the creation of the Ingwe Coal Corporation in South Africa; the listing of Billiton on the London Stock Exchange; the merger of BHP and Billiton into the largest diversified mining company in the world; the initial public offering of Xstrata plc on the London Stock Exchange in 2002 and Xstrata's subsequent acquisitions of MIM Holdings and Falconbridge Limited, amongst others and most recently the successful merger of Xstrata and Glencore. Early in 2015 he and his partners successfully closed the X2 Resources fund after raising almost US$6 billion from a combination of sovereign wealth, pension and private equity funds.
Charitable work
From 2009 to 2017 Davis was president of the council of members and chairman of the board of trustees of the Jewish Leadership Council of the United Kingdom, the umbrella body of the largest Jewish charities and Institutions in the UK responsible for the strategic imperatives of UK Jewry. He is also Chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Commission of the United Kingdom. He is a trustee of the Foundation and Friends of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, which supports the work of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Davis is also a member of the Brookings International Advisory Council and a trustee of the Institute of National Security Studies. In February 2018 Davis came under criticism for allegedly participating in a cover-up in 2013 of alleged financial impropriety at the Jewish Leadership Council charity where he was Chair. The Jewish Chronicle subsequently published parts of emails by Davis outlining his proposed resolution to have the CEO resign on the grounds of ill health and that he hoped the full details would not be leaked.
Politics
In 2016, Davis was appointed treasurer of the British Conservative Party. In June 2017, he was also appointed CEO of the party. In October 2017, commentator Iain Dale placed Davis at number 83 in 'The Top 100 Most Influential People on the Right'. In March 2018, along with David Brownlow, Davis donated money to pay Ben Bradley's legal bills resulting from Bradley's tweet falsely accusing Jeremy Corbyn of "selling British secrets to communist spies in the 1980s". Davis resigned as CEO and Treasurer of the Conservative Party on 24 July 2019.
Personal life
His wife Barbara is a solicitor. They live in London with their three children, Sarah, Ronit and Eitan.
