Michael Platt is the richest person in the UK. (Image: LinkedIn)
A British hedge fund manager has been named the richest person in the UK with an estimated fortune of £14.3 billion.
Yet, despite his huge wealth, is so secretive that even the receptionist at his own company reportedly doesn’t know who he is.
Platt, who co-founded in 2000, saw his fortune surge in 2024, catapulting him from tenth place to the top of the UK’s rich list, according to .
He overtook previous frontrunner , the billionaire owner of INEOS and major shareholder in .
While his fortune is massive, Platt is not among the world’s wealthiest individuals, ranking 104th internationally.
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Michael Platt is a very secretive person who rarely appears in the media. (Image: Bloomberg)
The global rich list continues to be dominated by US tech giants, with , Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg holding the top spots.
Born in Preston, Lancashire, in 1968, Platt came from a working-class background and developed an interest in investing from an early age.
According to , he learned about trading shares from his grandmother at the age of 12 and turned a £500 birthday gift into a significantly larger sum.
By the time he was studying mathematics and economics at the London School of Economics, he was already making up to £30,000 from investments.
After graduating in 1991, Platt joined JP Morgan in New York as a trainee before rising through the ranks to become a managing director in London.
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In 2000, he co-founded BlueCrest Capital Management, which has since become one of Europe’s largest hedge funds.
Despite his financial success, Platt fiercely guards his privacy and avoids publicity.
The Daily Mail reported that he and his BlueCrest co-founder William Reeves refused to be photographed when The Times featured them after their company went public in 2006.
Financial editor Patrick Hosking wrote: “They guard their privacy fiercely and detest their regular appearances in newspaper rich lists.”
Platt himself once claimed to be “the highest-earning person in the world of finance,” according to an audio recording captured by a New York taxi driver.
And his approach to hiring apparently also reflects his competitive mindset.
In Hedge Fund Market Wizards: How Winning Traders Win, he described his ideal recruit as someone 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 he can pick off the US drunks coming home on Saturday night… that’s the type of guy you want, someone who understands an edge.”
His company, BlueCrest, has been a dominant force in the financial world, though he stepped away from managing client money in 2015 to focus on investing his own wealth.
His son Marcus, now in his mid-20s, recently joined the firm.
In a LinkedIn post, Platt wrote: “You deserve this new opportunity. I wish you the best of luck but I don’t expect you will need luck!”
Despite his low profile, Platt has made political donations, giving at least £225,000 to the Conservative Party, according to .