Regal Partners says it walked away from its attempt to buy Platinum Asset Management last year because the struggling global equities manager wanted too high a price for a business that was in rapid outflows.

The comments made by chief executive Brendan O’Connor at the Macquarie Australia Conference follows last week’s move by rival hedge fund L1 Capital, which bought a large chunk of Platinum founder Kerr Neilson’s stake and confirmed merger talks between the two asset managers.