A hedge fund run by billionaire Michael Platt has been fined £41million by the City watchdog for failing to guard against conflicts of interest.
Bluecrest Capital Management did not correctly manage a conflict which left clients with a ‘sub-standard investment management service’, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found.
The issue arose between 2011 and 2015 when Bluecrest shifted portfolio managers working on a fund open to outside investors to an internal fund open only to its partners and employees.
‘Sub-standard service’: Bluecrest Capital Management, run by billionaire Michael Platt (pictured) has been fined £41m by the City watchdog
The FCA ordered Bluecrest to redress clients who had suffered losses. Bluecrest, co-founded by Platt in 2000, said it would ‘vigorously defend against the FCA’s allegations’.
Its findings, the FCA said, were provisional because Bluecrest referred the case to a tribunal.
But it slammed the firm for insufficient and misleading disclosures to investors, saying that the external fund relied on an inferior computer algorithm.
US regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission last year ordered Bluecrest to pay £127m to investors hit by the creation of the internal fund.
Lancashire-born Platt, 53, has donated at least £225,000 to the Tory Party since 2004, and is worth around £10billion, according to Forbes.
