6 reasons why Platinum will continue to prosper under Andrew Clifford

While ETF's have been all the rage in the past few years, I don't believe that active management is dead. There are a lot of active managers out there that should be dead - and many are indeed closing up shop, and deservedly so.

What makes PTM different? They have demonstrated a track record of outperforming the market 25 years of it.

The main concern in recent times is 'key man risk' with Kerr Neilson has stepping down as CEO. Can they continue to prosper without him at the helm? I believe they have built a culture at Platinum to sustain success beyond Neilson's leadership.

My basis for this is mainly based on performance. Kerr and Andrew have been co-portfolio managers for their flagship fund for a long time. But what I find very pleasing is that across all their other trusts with different portfolio managers - they have outperformed the market since the inception of those funds.

The numbers speak for themselves (figures are from the end of the march quarter):

Platinum International Fund 12.3% vs MSCI All Country World Index 6.9% - Outperformance of 5.4%

Platinum Asia Fund 14.4% vs MSCI All Country Asia ex Japan Net Index 10.3% - Outperformance of 4.1%

Platinum European Fund 11.5% vs MSCI All Country Europe Net Index 3% - Outperformance of 8.5%.

Platinum Japan Fund 14.1% vs MSCI Japan Net Index 2.8% - Outperformance of 11.3%

Platinum International Brands Fund 12.6% vs MSCI All Country Wolrd Net Index 3.2% - Outperformance of 9.4%

Platinum International Health Care Fund 13.4% vs MSCI All Country World Health Care Net Index 9.2% - Outperformance of 4.2%

Platinum International Technology Fund 9.2% vs MSCI All Country World IT Net Index 1.3% - Outperformance of 7.9%

If you put your money in any of these funds when they created it, you would be doing extremely well.

When I looked at this, I was expected a couple of dogs - but no, this is not so. Kerr cannot be across all the holdings across all those other funds, so those portfolio managers have a huge responsibility - yet they have all still prospered. What I put this down to is the processes and culture they have created which has enabled it to happen, and is why I think they can continue to succeed.

Clay Smolinski, who is now co-managing the International Fund, used to head up the European Fund - which has outperformed the Europe index by 8.5%. Clearly not an index hugger, and not too shabby at all.