Michael Platt, the co-founder of BlueCrest Capital Management, is the richest hedge fund manager in Britain with a net worth of £3 billion ($4.1 billion), according to the Sunday Times.
The Sunday Times published its 2018 “Rich List” today (May 13), ranking the 1,000 wealthiest people in the UK. It compiles the index by calculating net worth based on identifiable wealth, including land, property, other assets such as art and racehorses, or shares in publicly quoted companies. The calculations do not include bank accounts, which the paper can’t access. The list includes, where relevant, spouses who actively participate in their partner’s business or who pool their assets.
The data show that over the last year, Platt’s wealth increased by £600 million ($813 million). Platt’s success is in large part due to the decision by BlueCrest in 2015 to return the approximately £5.2 billion of outside investors’ money it had been managing. From then on, BlueCrest’s traders have been managing the roughly £750 million in assets Platt and his partners had made by running the fund for previous decade and a half, as well as borrowed money.
That, according to Bloomberg, freed BlueCrest up to not worry so much about proving a monthly return, and, therefore, take on more risk. It paid off. In 2016, the hedge fund generated a return of 50% on its capital, and in 2017 improved further, to a return of 54%. And of course, since much of the capital used during by BlueCrest in the past few years was Platt’s own, that’s led to a significant increase in the hedge fund manager’s personal wealth.