Michael Platt, the co-founder of BlueCrest Capital Management, not only remains the richest hedge fund manager in Britain he has extended the gap to the rest of the pack. With a net worth of £3.7 billion, according to the Sunday Times, he is £2bn wealthier than the next hedgie, having been £1.6bn ahead last year.
The Sunday Times published its 2019 “Rich List” recently, 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.
Mike Platt returned all external capital to investors in BlueCrest, converting the firm to a private partnership by the end of the 1Q 2016. The business has soared since, unencumbered by the mindset of institutional capital, and reporting obligations that go with it. This has allowed the assumption of a higher level of risk, and freedom to carry out investment strategies with different pay-offs and time-frames.
In the HFI HF Rich List Nick Roditi and Jim Mellon appear as they derived their initial wealth from hedge funds, though both have gone on to be successful investors in other ways.
The remainder of the 1000 members of the Rich List includes other hedge fund managers. It won’t be a surprise to know that the titular owners of Marshall Wace Asset Management are worth £590m each, or that Bill Armitage of Egerton Capital has been estimated to be worth £600m, given their firms have been in existence for two and two-and-a-half decades respectively. The rising star of the Hedge Fund Rich List is Lansdowne Partners alumnus Ross Turner. He founded Pelham Capital in 2007, and has generated sufficient fees to be worth £626m this year, by the Sunday Times’ calculations, more than double the previous year’s estimate.
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