Kerr Neilson steps back at Platinum

A new chief executive has been appointed for the Australian fund manager,

Monday, February 26th 2018, 11:31AM

Platinum Group has appointed Andrew Clifford as chief executive.

He will replace Kerr Neilson on July 1, who continues as a full-time executive and part of the investment team.

Clifford, who is the company’s co-founder and has over 30 years of investment experience, was appointed chief investment officer in 2013.

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.”

The asset manager said 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.

Tags: Platinum Asset Management