Ivan Julian Massow (born 11 September 1967) is a British financial services entrepreneur, gay rights campaigner, and media personality.
[1] His relationships with his father and subsequently his stepfather were poor;[7] as a boy he ended up being cared for by social services,[8] before being adopted as a pre-teenager by John Massow.
[1][10] Massow specialised in offering financial services to gay people,[1] in particular sourcing competitively priced insurance and mortgages for customers whose sexuality previously resulted in their being charged much higher premiums.
[9] At the end of the decade his company had several offices, including branches in Edinburgh, Manchester and Liverpool,[9][11] and was at the forefront of the 'gay finance' sector.
[12] Between 2003 and 2004 Massow was director of another financial adviser firm, this time a tied agent of the Zurich Advice Network (previously Allied Dunbar).
[1] In September 2011 Massow set up Pay Me My, a trading name of Massows Limited, which offered customers a rebate of 80% of the 'trail' commission paid to their existing advisers if the customer switched their insurance, pension and investment policies to the agency of Pay Me My, who would take 20% as their fee.
[15] Massow defended the business model of the firm from suggestions that it would not be viable following changes to financial regulation in the UK due to start on 1 January 2013;[16] however, it ceased trading in August 2013 when the government banned commission rendering its services obsolete.
[17] The firm informed its clients that, should they choose to remain with the company, all future trail commissions would be retained and not rebated.
[18] This action was unpopular with customers, therefore Massow agreed to sell the remaining assets under management to Clubfinance, who would continue rebating the majority of their commission.
He described modern concept art as "pretentious, self-indulgent, craftless tat" and "the product of over-indulged, middle-class [...], bloated egos who patronise real people with fake understanding".
[23] His views have engendered strong feelings about him amongst the art world; a year after his resignation one artist commented that "they treat him like the Black Death round here", although Massow has received less vocal support from many artists who fear they will never achieve recognition unless they follow the conceptual route.
[7] Massow has personally provided regular financial support for some artists, to assist them in their lives and work.
[25][26] However Massow, along with many espousing "compassionate conservatism", was frustrated by the Party's apparent reluctance to alter its stance on gay rights issues and discrimination in general.
[25] However Massow later returned to the Conservatives, subsequently claiming that the brief defection to Labour had a particular motivation: "I knew if I switched it would be front page news.
He joined the Liberal Democrats in September 2016,[5][31] in protest at the Conservative Party's post-Brexit vote stance.
The documentary contrasted Ivan's millionaire London lifestyle with that of David, a bohemian labourer who lives in a converted truck near Glastonbury.
[34] Massow Financial Services was the first mainstream business to sponsor London's Gay Pride in 1990 which it continued to do in subsequent years.
Massow subsequently described the experience as uplifting, stating that "The prospect of dying wasn't frightening, as I'd thought, but calm and full of relief.