Macquarie profit declines
Macquarie Group has reversed the trend of big bank profits this week, reporting a 16 per cent decline in net profit after tax to $403 million.
The banking group’s chairman, Nicholas Moore, said that the decline had been foreshadowed in the company’s market update in September and was attributable to subdued market conditions affecting activity across a number of businesses, particularly fixed income, currencies and commodities.
However, he said more favourable market conditions and benefits from recent initiatives had resulted in improved performances for Macquarie Funds Group, Corporate and Asset Finance and the Banking and Financial Services Group.
Moore said that continuing uncertain market conditions made short-term forecasting difficult, and that while market conditions in September and October had shown some signs of improvement, activity continued to track below normal levels.
He said on that basis, the company expected its financial year 2011 result to be broadly in line with the previous financial year.
AUTHOR
Mike Taylor
Recommended for you
In this week’s episode of Relative Return Insider, AMP chief economist Shane Oliver joins the show to dissect the ongoing government economic reform roundtable and reflect on the wish lists of industry stakeholders – and whether there is hope for meaningful reform.
In this week’s episode of Relative Return Insider, hosts Maja Garaca Djurdjevic and Keith Ford take a look at the Reserve Bank’s latest rate cut call, the factors influencing the unanimous decision, and what economists expect from the rest of the year.
In this episode of Relative Return Insider, host Keith Ford is joined by Accountants Daily journalist Imogen Wilson to take a look at why there has been such broad support for a more comprehensive tax reform discussion at the Treasurer’s economic roundtable.
In this week’s episode of Relative Return Insider, AMP chief economist Shane Oliver joins the show to discuss Australia’s stagnating productivity ahead of the government’s economic reform roundtable, and how picking all the “low-hanging fruit” for reform in the ’90s helped kick off a surge that has since stalled out.
