A year nine school trip to the ASX pointed Platinum Asset Management’s chief investment officer Andrew Clifford down the path of investing at an early age.
“I was quite fascinated by the idea that I might turn my $100 into $120,” Clifford says of the experience.
“I was really taken by the idea that you could buy and sell a company and that if you understood how to do this better than other people you could make money.”
He later undertook work experience on the foreign exchange floor of the ASX and although the rush and noise of trading weren’t for him, his fascination with investing persisted.
This propelled him towards a business degree and then shortly afterwards to a job at BT (formerly Bankers Trust) where he met Kerr Neilson.
When Neilson resigned in 1994 to set up his own firm, he asked Clifford along with Toby Harrop and Jim Simpson to join him as founding shareholders.
“It’s very interesting to look back on that because Kerr had announced his resignation and then a number of weeks later approached us to join him and I think that the three of us really just had no hesitation,” he says.
“We’d already worked with him, we knew he was an extraordinary investor and an extraordinary person to work with, so there was very little thought put in to whether we would stay or leave, which, in hindsight, probably wasn’t the most sensible response, but it worked out quite well in the end.”
Clifford is now responsible for the management of Platinum’s team of investment professionals and is also the co-portfolio manager of the group’s flagship fund, the Platinum International Fund.
His experience in this role has taught him that the hardest thing for people to grasp when it comes to investing is being able to separate out price from what you’re buying.
They understand if they’re getting a good deal on a material asset, like a house, but when it comes to shares, people get fixated on great businesses and don’t always look at the price they’re paying for them, he says.
“The problem is, great businesses don’t always make great investments because the price might be too high,” he says.
“You need to think about where the fear is in markets because that’s where the opportunity is.”
Indeed, it’s this philosophy that underpins Platinum own funds, and which the group aims to educate its investors about as Clifford believes that a greater understanding of investment will ultimately lead to better outcomes.
“We’re all investors whether we like it or not in today’s society,” he says.
“We need to understand exactly what we’re doing with our money as it will make a big difference to the outcomes of our life down the track.”
Andrew Clifford is responsible for a team of around 30 investment managers and oversees the implementation of investment strategy and processes across numerous sectors including healthcare, technology and communications, financials, consumer, resources and industrial and Asia.
Written by Elizabeth Somerville, Content and Community Manager, evolution media group.
