Hedge fund couple to give hundreds of millions of pounds to fight malnutrition The publicity-shy Hohns are Britain's biggest philanthropists, having given away more than £1bn in five years. Mr Hohn, 46, who has a reputation for being aggressive and ruthless with the management of the companies he invests in, set up TCI in 2003. The fund was structured so that a percentage of the earnings go directly to CIFF. In 2008 he gave £466m to the foundation, thought to be the biggest donation by a Briton in a single year. TCI has had a couple of years of relatively poor returns, but the resurgent fund generated 9pc returns in May, taking its total this year to almost 30pc, one of the best performances in the world. The foundation, which has grown from a standing start to Britain's biggest in less than a decade, has been credited with revolutionising charitable work by applying hedge fund-style performance targets to projects. Mrs Cooper-Hohn said CIFF was approached by the Government after the Olympics and asked if she would help Britain and Brazil, as the next Games host, tackle the issue of poor nutrition. The charity commissioned a detailed economic analysis from the Institute of Development Studies, which has shown that poor quality food costs emerging markets 11pc of GDP in Africa and Asia. The analysis claims that through specifically targeted work, malnutrition can be reduced by a third in five to seven years. Mrs Cooper-Hohn said: "We back issues where the evidence is that with specific action you transform lives, at scale. The magnitude of malnutrition, and having the chance to eradicate it, is extremely compelling. She said the efforts of the next seven years would be different to famine aid. Hunger, while incredibly disturbing, is not the same thing as malnutrition. Eat as much maize and rice as you can and you will be pudgy but, without extra nutrients, you will be still be stunted and your brain won't have developed properly. Our key target is to get nutrients to mothers and children under two - the first thousand days, as we call it, are critical for development. Children born in poor families but who are given proper nutrition are 33pc more likely to escape poverty in adulthood. Those who have had proper nutrition are likely to earn up to 50pc more than those who have not. Mrs Cooper-Hohn, mother to 12-year-old triplets and an older daughter, described the couple's ambitions for the foundation as an "obsession"." In an interview with The Daily Telegraph in 2008 she said: "One of the things that attracted Chris and me was the shared sense of something larger than ourselves and the thrill that we can have a positive impact. This is a key principle of the foundation - the aim that Chris's money will result in long-lasting and radical change.""