He is Britain's wealthiest hedge fund manager according to Forbes, with an estimated wealth of US$18 billion as of December 2024.
[10][6] Discerning in August 2007 that "a stock market crash lay ahead," Platt "sold his bank shares, and bought ‘safe’ sovereign bonds," and thus "avoided the worst of the financial crisis, and profited from the resulting 'flight to quality' and plunge in interest rates.
[12] BlueCrest initially focused on trading interest rates and using computer algorithms to capture trends in bonds and commodities.
In 2013 it expanded into trading equity to compete with Millennium Management LLC and SAC Capital Advisors LLP.
[2] In 2011, George Soros decided to stop managing money for outside clients and turn his hedge-fund firm into a family office.
Platt reportedly declined the offer, saying plenty of investors were willing to pay BlueCrest 2-and-20, the industry standard fee structure.
[13] That same year, Platt discussed the crisis in the Eurozone, attributing it to "the cultural and political divide" between north and south.
[16][17] 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.
[18][19] In his letter to investors explaining the change, Platt explained that "Recent developments in the industry, including, among other things, downward pressure on fee levels, the increasing cost of hiring the best portfolio management talent and the difficulty in tailoring investment products to meet the individual needs and constraints of a large number of diverse investors, have all significantly reduced industry profitability and flexibility."
"[27] In his first live television interview, given to Bloomberg on 15 December 2011, Platt said that there are "three things he won't touch – exposure to banks, peripheral debt risk, and illiquid investments.
For example, "I look for the type of guy in London who gets up at seven o'clock on Sunday morning when his kids are still in bed and logs on to a poker site so that he can pick off the US drunks coming home on Saturday night.