(Bloomberg) — Even by his recent lofty standards, last year was extraordinary for billionaire Michael Platt.
(Bloomberg) — Even by his recent lofty standards, last year was extraordinary for billionaire Michael Platt.
His private investment firm BlueCrest Capital Management surged 153%, becoming one of 2022’s most successful investors, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified because the details are private. It’s Platt’s biggest gain by far since he returned outside capital in 2016 to focus on managing his own wealth and that of his partners.
With freedom to leverage his own capital, Platt benefited from bond and commodities trading last year amid soaring inflation and rising interest rates. These types of trades also helped some macro hedge funds to post triple-digit gains last year, when the rest of the industry struggled with the spike in volatility.
BlueCrest’s returns are net of expenses. It’s not clear how much money the firm manages now, but Platt’s fortune before taking into account last year’s surge was estimated at $12 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Platt, one of Britain’s richest people, has rapidly expanded his wealth since 2016, after he handed back about $7 billion in external money to focus on trading for himself. He has since built BlueCrest into an investment giant, hiring dozens of traders and paying some of the biggest compensation packages in the industry to keep them.
Platt is among a cohort of macro traders, who booked huge gains last year. Chris Rokos, Crispin Odey and Said Haidar all benefited from trades that profited from falling bond prices as interest rates began to rise in response to soaring inflation.
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(Adds peer comparison in the last paragraph)
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