Laughing all the way to the bank, City's 'Posh and Becks' who made £28m from credit crunch

Crispin and his wife Nichola work on the theory that if you can't beat the crisis, own it  -  and Mr Odey has dramatically proved it works by pocketing a whopping £28million from the credit crunch.

His payday has astonished City watchers at a time of doom and gloom, and cemented his reputation as the David Beckham of the money markets.

Crispin Odey and wife Nichola Pease are pocketing from the credit crunch by betting against the banks

His wife, the vivacious Nichola Pease, was recently ranked the UK's 20th richest woman in the Sunday Times Rich List  -  leading to the couple being dubbed the Posh and Becks of the City.

For Mr Odey, a 49-year-old hedge fund manager, the key to his success has been betting against banks  -  and their hundreds of thousands of small shareholders.

A year before the first cracks appeared in the global financial system, he spotted the gathering storm that was the 'sub prime' credit crisis in the United States.

Since then, his company Odey Asset Management has been gambling on bank shares falling  -  as they have been spectacularly doing.

While ordinary shareholders saw their stocks plummet, Mr Odey's foresight helped his firm record an annual profit of £64.6million, out of which Mr Odey has paid himself £28million.

Which is perhaps just as well, considering that his wife recently lost one of her jobs as a non-executive director of Northern Rock.

But, while the extra cash is not to be sniffed at, the Odey household was hardly feeling the pinch before.

Miss Pease 47, a scion of a famous banking family, and her husband live in a four-storey £3million townhouse in Chelsea with their children  -  boys of 14 and nine, and a girl of 11  -  and where the neighbours include Tory grandee Lord Cranborne.

Despite juggling life as a mother  -  reportedly working four days a week so she can do the school run on Fridays  -  with the demands of raking in millions at the office, Miss Pease apparently detests being compared to 'City Superwoman' Nicola Horlick.

It is reckoned that the couple, operating out of a Georgian office in Mayfair, have built a fortune of more than £300million.

Mrs Pease hates to be compared to multi-million pound businesswoman Nicola Horlick

Cerebral and confident, Mr Odey has long been a City success.

Born to a Yorkshire family and educated at Harrow School, he went up to Oxford aged just 16.

He has been running Odey Asset Management since quitting Barings Bank in 1991, which was another flash of either luck or genius  -  he got out a few years before rogue trader Nick Leeson brought Barings to its knees.

At the age of 26, he met and swiftly became engaged to media baron Rupert Murdoch's eldest daughter Prudence.

She was reportedly amused to hear he had once slummed it in a commune in Australia after being converted by a group preaching the virtues of giving away one's worldly goods.

Their marriage lasted 15 months.

He married Miss Pease in 1991, when he was 32, and they made a formidable team.

Her family are banking royalty and have been financial big hitters since the 19th century, when they had a hand in building the Stockton to Darlington railway.

Her father, Sir Richard, was chairman of Yorkshire Bank while her brother is a high-flier at New Star Asset Management.

Her brother-in-law John Varley is group chief executive at Barclays.

For the past ten years she has been running JO Hambro Capital Management, with £4billion under her control.

She is paid several million pounds a year.

But it was her role as a non-executive director at Northern Rock that brought unwelcome headlines.

Mr Odey's firm never touched Northern Rock itself because of the obvious danger of a conflict of interest.

But Mr Odey must have been embarrassed when he was 'outed' as making a bonanza from other failing banks, in particular Bradford & Bingley.

His winning tactic was called 'short selling', which effectively meant gambling against the bank's 900,000 shareholders, reaping rewards only if they lost out.

Short-selling is not illegal, but it caused a storm when it emerged during a Financial Services Authority clampdown that his fund managers were 'shorting' the High Street bank.

Meanwhile, as Northern Rock's fortunes sank, questions were asked about why his wife did not bring some calm and experience to events.

She excused herself afterwards on the grounds that the crisis was 'unprecedented' and could not be foreseen. Then, along with all the other non-executive directors, she resigned.

Outside money- making, Mr Odey's passions are wine, modern art and yachts.

Thanks to his windfall payday, he will now be able to enjoy them even more.