Platinum Group has appointed Andrew Clifford as its new chief executive, effective 1 July. He will replace Kerr Neilson who would continue as a full time executive and a member of Platinum’s investment team, the company said.
Clifford, who is the company’s co-founder and has over 30 years of investment experience, was appointed as chief investment officer (CIO) in 2013 and he would continue to lead the investment team as CIO.
Neilson said he would focus his work on the “generation of investment ideas and company research”.
“I formerly held the positions of CIO and CEO concurrently and found that with the strong support of the other executive directors my time was essentially focused on investing,” he said.
“More important still is that in an investment performance-driven organisation like Platinum, it is essential that the direction of the firm is controlled from the perspective of investing rather than from that of money gathering.”
Clifford and Clay Smolinski would take full portfolio management responsibility for the flagship fund, the Platinum International Fund and Neilson’s responsibilities for Platinum’s other global equity funds would be split between the pair.
According to FE Analytics, since 2013 the International Fund delivered an annualised performance of 17.48 per cent which was higher than the sector’s average (15.11 per cent) and the MSCI AC Index (17.41 per cent).
