Kittyboomboom, I think you're right on the money regarding...

Kittyboomboom, I think you're right on the money regarding Kerr's style vs Andrew's. Kerr was always understated and statesmanlike in meetings. Andrew does come across arrogant and he genuinely gives off the air of not wanting to be there answering anyone's questions.

The loss of institutional mandates will continue. There are still plenty of old school retail master trust platforms out there (think AMP, CFS, IOOF etc) with their own mandate pools on their investment menus, and these gatekeepers can choose to replace the underlying managers whenever they please. Once upon a time (15+ years ago), it was essential to have Platinum on the menu (kind of like Magellan 10 years ago) and everyone stomached the high fees because of the manager's strong retail brand and demand from financial advisers. This has now flipped, and with the Platinum funds now in outflows and with poor 10 year performance numbers as well as high fees, these same gatekeepers would now be looking to either:
a) replace Platinum (by handing the underlying FUM inside their platform pool to a new manager), or
b) if they decide to keep Platinum on, they'd be very aggressively renegotiating the fee payable to Platinum (and perhaps pocketing the difference between the old fee and the new fee, which is easy money for them, but again, poor for Platinum).
Just like Magellan, Platinum are in a poor position to resist such moves.

The ongoing loss of FUM and/or loss of margin can be temporarily offset by cutting costs and hoping that there is a lot of lazy "sticky" retail money that will endure, but the staff changes/cost cutting measures will probably just give the retail research houses (who provide the fund recommendations to financial advisers) the cover they want/need to downgrade their ratings on Platinum funds further. Vicious cycle.

PTM sorely need a deep and prolonged bear market to generate some immediate and significant outperformance if they're going to have any chance of re-invigorating their brand and surviving as a standalone listed business in the medium to long term. I still think RPL would be the logical acquirer, as they are one of few managers who can still get away with high fees in this market, and have a track record of running a retail focussed global equity long short strategy over the long run (with better results, via PM Capital)