Platinum awards mandate, changes fund name

Platinum Asset Management has awarded a mandate to a US-based investment manager to oversee investment capabilities in a 20-year-old fund, simultaneously altering the name to reflect the update.

From October 26, the Platinum International Health Sciences Fund will be renamed the East Rocky Health Sciences Fund, which will be managed by East Rocky Asset Management, as previously announced by L1 Group in September.

East Rocky Biotech Asset Management is a corporate authorised representative of L1 Capital, and will provide distribution, operational, compliance and administrative support to the fund.

East Rocky Asset Management was founded by portfolio manager Tom Tang in 2022, specialising in the biotechnology and health sciences sectors. Before East Rocky, Tang founded Moose Hill Capital in 2016. Earlier in his career, he held investment roles at BAM Capital, Kazazian Asset Management, Prospector Partners and Jennison Associates.

Under the change, investors in Class P and Class C will continue to have their units invested in the fund in their respective classes, with no changes to the fees applicable to the existing units. The fund will continue to require an initial investment of $10,000, with no minimum additional investments thereafter.

However, from the effective date, any additional investment, other than through the distribution reinvestment plan (DRP), will be made into a new monthly class, incurring a total management fees and costs of 2% p.a. of the net asset value. Its performance fee will be 20.5% of the amount exceeding the benchmark - of which 50% is allocated to the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF (XBI) and the other half in iShares Biotechnology ETF (IBB). This is rebalanced monthly in USD.

The fund has an investment horizon of five or more years.

A new product disclosure statement (PDS) has been issued and will take effect on the commencement date. Under the PDS, the maximum anticipated leverage will increase from 150% to 200% of the net asset value of the fund, Platinum said.

The fund was incepted in November 2003 and returned 23.8% over the 12 months to September-end for C Class investors and 24.1% for P Class investors.

Last week, Equity Trustees acquired Platinum Investment Management from L1 Group to expand its responsible entity business. The transaction is part of L1 Group's cost reduction strategy after the group was formed last year with the merger of L1 Capital and Platinum Asset Management.