Introduction
Michael Edward Platt (born March 1968) is an English hedge fund manager, the co-founder, chief executive officer, and principal of BlueCrest Capital Management, Europe's third-largest hedge-fund firm. Platt co-founded the firm in 2000. Bluecrest is a systematic hedge fund, based in London.
Early life
Platt was born in Preston, England. Following in the footsteps of his father - a professor at Manchester University - Platt studied Civil Engineering at Imperial College London. After a year he grew bored and switched to Mathematics and Economics at the London School of Economics, graduating in 1992.
Early career
Platt started in the City when his grandmother gave him some shares to invest in and he discovered a talent. He joined JP Morgan in 1991 as a managing director responsible for relative value trading. Platt assumed responsibility for developing JP Morgan's swaps and options trading business in April 1992 and in April 1996, became the head of trading for all swaps products relating to the 11 founder nations of the European single currency. In 2000 Platt co-founded BlueCrest Capital Management LLP, with William Reeves.
BlueCrest Capital
BlueCrest Capital Management (UK) LLP manages over £30bn, and employs 350 people.BlueCrest initially focused on trading interest rates and using computers to capture trends in bonds and commodities. In 2013 it expanded into trading stocks to compete with Millennium Management LLC and SAC Capital Advisors LLP.
In 2011 George Soros decided to stop managing money for outside clients and turn his hedge-fund firm into a family office. Soros spoke to Platt, asking him to take on more than $1 billion for a 0.5 percent management fee and a 10 percent performance fee. Platt reportedly declined the offer, saying plenty of investors were willing to pay BlueCrest 2-and-20, the industry standard fee structure.
In December, 2015, Platt announced that BlueCrest would return $7 billion for outside investors, take no outside money in the future and become a private partnership.
Personal life
Platt is married and lives in Geneva, Switzerland. He is a notable art collector having built a contemporary art collection not by shopping for pictures, but by commissioning them from well-known artists. He has a private showroom in the crypt of a deconsecrated church at One Marylebone, which displays a selection of art by, among others, taxidermist Polly Morgan, the Turner Prize-winning sculptor and installation artist Keith Tyson and Reece Jones
In 2013, Platt purchased an apartment on Central Park South, New York for $11.4 million.