Charles Myers was on a ski lift in Aspen when the calls started coming in. Hours earlier, the US had conducted an unprecedented attack on Venezuela, beheading the government by kidnapping President Nicholas Maduro. Myers had been planning for such an event.
Myers' firm Signum Global Advisors helps its investor clients get in on the ground floor of capital-intensive reconstruction — often in the aftermath of armed conflict. The previous year he’d arranged trips to Syria and Ukraine, but Venezuela was to be the most popular yet.
He appeared on television a couple of days later to plug a trip he was already organising to Caracas. Aspen’s snowglobe vistas were visible over his shoulder as he video-called into CNBC.
“Some of the easy money has already been made,” he said with a hint of regret, “but this is a major infrastructure play. I think it could be as big as $500bn over the next 10 years”.
“Venezuela is sitting on the biggest oil reserves in the world,” he reminded the host, “this is a massive opportunity.”
Asked whether it troubled him to be selling access to a country destabilised by a likely breach of international law, Myers told BusinessInsider it wasn't his firm's place to take "a moral position".
Myers organised a cabal of 55 investors who descended on Caracas, complete with armoured cars and bodyguards for a two-day conference offering exclusive access to senior figures from the government, officialdom and the private sector. The group even got a meeting with the interim president at Miraflores, the presidential palace.
Signum bills itself as a ‘policy and strategy firm’ whose executives enjoy "unique exposure to decision-making at the most senior levels" — including, in its own words, lawmakers in "Washington, Westminster, Brussels, and elsewhere."
Apart from warzones, Signum will now seek to leverage its developing ties to Andy Burnham’s Labour government, and as it turns out, Angela Rayner.
Last month, Signum donated £20,000 to Rayner. Back in March she’d taken £10,000 for a speaking engagement with Signum as a part of a run of similar gigs with City firms, and donated the Signum cash to charity. Rayner also featured in the firm’s ‘Westminster Day’ in March alongside other senior politicians.
So far she is the only Labour recipient of cash from Signum, but she is not the only Labour MP the firm has courted. This year Signum has hosted a number of Labour MPs at client-facing events, and was due to host an investor call with the new Prime Minister which was cancelled at the last minute over scheduling issues.
openDemocracy asked Rayner’s office whether she believes Signum’s values align with those of the Labour Party, but received no response. Signum Global Advisors declined to comment.
New Government, New Priorities, New Lobbying
In the wild west of lobbying and political advisory work, self-promotion is key. Firms need to be seen to have the level of access – and commensurate insight – their prospective clients will pay so much for. This is particularly the case when a new administration is formed.
“A new UK government, a new cabinet, and new policy priorities. It can be hard to keep up - it can be hard to understand!” wrote one of Signum’s UK-based partners on LinkedIn recently.
“Thankfully, Signum Global Advisors have already been engaging with many of these policymakers and allowing our clients the opportunity to question them directly.… with many already lined up to join us for future events.”
Attached to the post were a series of photos, each of the staffer posing next to a different Labour MP in boardroom settings or at speaking events. The first is of Angela Rayner, then a series of other senior ministers – Jonathan Renyolds, Lucy Rigby, Angela Eagle and Dan Tomlinson – as well as a few influential backbenchers.
For a long time considered a potential challenger to Starmer, Rayner’s return to frontline politics was long anticipated; and though she is not as close to Burnham’s team as many assume on account of her Manchester roots, she is still a highly influential Labour figure, and the Secretary of State for Housing – a post of significant interest to major developers and investors.
Rayner isn’t the only Labour MP in Signum’s orbit. Yuan Yang, a Labour MP on the Treasury select committee, was hosted to discuss the fiscal situation facing the Treasury and what an incoming Burnham government might prioritise. Polly Billington, MP for East Thanet, came to talk through Labour's "pride in place" agenda and coastal deprivation. Former City lobbyist-turned MP Callum Anderson discussed mobilising domestic capital to support retail investment.
Signum has been running "Westminster Days" and private roundtables in London for over a year, each one drawing a widening circle of MPs, ministers, peers and party officials into the same rooms as its paying clients. The firm's next instalment, announced this month, is billed as an "invitation-only event held under the Chatham House Rule" — meaning attendees are free to use what they hear, but never to say who said it. Access to the room itself is by invitation only.
Reform UK has had a seat at the table too. Richard Tice, the party's deputy leader, spoke at an exclusive Westminster event last September, while Robert Jenrick appeared alongside Rayner back in March. Signum's head of EU/UK research separately hosted Laila Cunningham, Reform's candidate for London mayor, for a roundtable on political fragmentation and the party's "competitiveness" agenda on immigration and the labour market.
Westminster’s lax lobbying and transparency rules mean the public has no right to know the companies on whose behalf Signum is effectively buying access when it donates cash to senior MPs and hosts them for lavish receptions.
Signum is not registered as a consultant lobbyist with the statutory watchdog. As a political advisory firm, Signum’s activities likely do not meet the statutory threshold for consultant lobbying, so the firm would not be obliged to publish a list of clients, even when it introduces those clients to government ministers.
And because the UK's statutory lobbying register only captures direct lobbying of ministers and permanent secretaries — not shadow ministers, backbenchers, or opposition parties — its extensive engagement with Reform, along with much of its Labour outreach that falls short of ministerial level, would not need to be declared anywhere at all, even if it did meet the threshold.
Your Trusted Travel Partner
Business continues apace for Signum.
The firm recently brought investors to Greenland, and another Venezuela trip is planned for November, as the country “enters a pivotal period of political and economic transition,”according to Signum.
“We’re taking clients to Caracas for exclusive access to senior government officials and private-sector leaders to explore the country’s recovery following the recent earthquakes and the implications for investors.”
Returning from the last Venezuela trip, one Signum staffer mused in an online post that Cuba, the latest country Trump has set his sights on, could be the firm’s next destination. Myers had told interviewers that Greenland, too, could be on the cards.
For Signum’s clients, companies like Canaima Capital, the demand is clearly there.
“We specialise in investing in frontier markets, providing institutional and professional investors with access to markets that are rejoining the Western financial world after years of isolation or are part of US expansionist foreign policy,” the firm wrote on social media upon returning from the March trip.
“The countries that we target are Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland, and potentially Iran.”
