A former investment manager charged with insider trading regarding a potential Platinum Asset Management takeover has been sentenced in Federal Court.
Rodney Forrest was charged with trading and procuring others to trade Platinum shares in August and September 2024 while in possession of insider information relating to a takeover offer. ASIC alleges he acquired around $2.6 million of Platinum shares while in possession of the inside information.
He pleaded guilty in August 2025 to two counts of insider trading between August and September 2024.
Forrest obtained a PowerPoint deck regarding the potential takeover of Platinum by Regal Partners which was announced in September and used to information to acquire shares in the expectation of them rising after the takeover bid was made public. Shares in Platinum subsequently rose 12.5 per cent.
In sentencing at the Federal Court of New South Wales on 23 January, Justice Robert Bromwich noted Forrest had pled guilty at an early stage and also had two young sons who would be affected by his imprisonment. He also said Forrest had a low likelihood of reoffending.
However, he said it was unclear how Forrest had obtained the information and that he had not disclosed this information. The photographs of the pitchdeck had been found on his phone, despite Forrest deleting them, only through an ASIC investigation and search warrant rather than him voluntarily sharing them.
“You were not a passive receiver of this information but nor were you a true insider.”
When it came to sentencing, Justice Bromwich said it “had not been an easy decision”. A call for a sentence of three years would “fall well short of what is appropriate” he said.
Forrest was sentenced to five years for the first offence and two years for the second offence with one year of consecutive arrangement and half of this must be served in prison, a three-year non-parole period.
This will see him serve the first sentence from 23 January 2026 to 22 January 2031 and the second from 22 January 2030 to 22 January 2032.
This case was the first outcome for ASIC’s new criminal investigation taskforce formed late last year to boost resources and expertise for investigating insider trading cases and one of the first matters to be referred to the Federal Court under its expanded criminal jurisdiction.
The matter was prosecuted by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth).
