Magellan Financial Group has reported its highest funds under management in almost a year at $38.4 billion.
This is the highest FUM since last August when FUM was $39 billion.
FUM declined after August with outflows of more than $3 billion until a bottom in October of $34.3 billion before starting to regain assets.
Retail FUM at the end of July declined from $17.2 billion to $16.6 billion, down 3.4 per cent, but this was offset by an increase of 12 per cent in institutional FUM from $19.4 billion to $21.8 billion.
The drop in retail FUM was attributed to a move during the month where the fund manager opted to convert the closed class units of its flagship Magellan Global to open class units.
This led to a $0.8 billion in net redemptions, the majority of which came from specialist investors who had purchased closed class units at a discount to net asset value (NAV).
In total, Magellan saw net retail outflows during the month of $1 billion and net institutional outflows of $0.9 billion.
This is expected to continue into August with redemptions of $0.2 billion expected from specialist investors.
Looking at asset classes, global equities declined from $15.7 billion to $14.8 billion, but Australian and infrastructure equities both reported a rise.
Infrastructure rose from $15.5 billion to $16.5 billion, while Australian equities – which encompasses its Airlie funds – rose from $5.4 billion to $7.1 billion.
In February 2024, the firm stated Sophia Rahmani, chief executive of Maple-Brown Abbott, would be appointed as managing director with the intention to become CEO within 12 months. She started the role in May, and Formica moved into an executive chair role to look after strategic development.
Since her appointment to Magellan, it has been announced that Maple-Brown Abbott will be acquired by Pinnacle affiliate Antipodes Partners.
This will see Maple-Brown Abbott ’s global listed infrastructure, Australian value equities, and Australian small companies investment teams operate autonomously under the Maple-Brown Abbott brand, alongside Antipodes’ existing global equities investment team.
Dan Longan, Pinnacle chief financial officer, said the deal presents Antipodes with complementary asset classes for future growth.
“We think it’s a deal that makes a lot of sense for Antipodes and we absolutely understand the rationale there. We think it gives them further avenues for future growth in asset classes that are pretty nicely complementary.”
