Ex-Wonga boss, 52, ditched wife for Ukrainian refugee

A Ukrainian immigrant who moved in with them at their family home has replaced the ex-boss of discredited payday lending company Wonga’s wife.

Haakon Overli, a 52-year-old investor and dotcom entrepreneur, is reported to have started a relationship with the Eastern European lady when she moved into the couple’s Surrey home in the wake of the Russian invasion.

According to The Sun, the married billionaire moved in with his lover just a few weeks after she had reportedly left his wife, orchestra chairperson Imogen Overli, and children.

Since the commencement of the crisis in Ukraine in March, Mr. Overli, whose net worth is assessed at $5 million by the website Companycheck, is alleged to have urged the government to support the immigration of Ukrainian refugees to the UK.

The Ukrainian refugee and Mr. Overli left the Surrey family estate not long after she was given a visa.

Since the start of the Russian incursion earlier this year, Mr. Overli has often tweeted his support for transferring Ukrainian refugees to the UK.

Norwegian-born After establishing online stockbroker Self Trade in 1997, Mr. Overli, who majored in math at the University of Oslo and also has an economics degree from Durham University, earned his money during the early stages of the dot com boom.

The firm went public in April 2000 and was sold for more than £900 million ($1.1 billion) in October of the same year.

Mr. Overli has previously held positions at ING Barings and JP Morgan as an investment banker.

After receiving harsh criticism from politicians, notably Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, for agreeing to lend money to borrowers who would never be able to pay it back, the firm entered administration in 2018.

Approximately 200,000 clients had unpaid debts of £400 million when Wonga shut down as a result of an onslaught of compensation claims.

Campaigners charged the contentious company of being a “licenced loan shark” and taking advantage of consumers by making modest loans with astronomically high interest rates that many people found it difficult to repay.

Before the government stepped in to restrict the rates to 1,500%, some consumers faced interest rates as high as 5,853%.

Additionally, Wonga levied interest at eye-watering annual percentage rates of 1,509%.

After leaving Wonga, Overli co-founded Dawn Capital, which bills itself as the biggest specialised investor in business-to-business software in Europe.