Magellan restructures leadership to leave legacy issues behind

Fund manager Magellan Financial has again changed its leadership structure at the same time as announcing a statutory net profit after tax of $104.1 million.

The clear message sent by Magellan executive chairman, Andrew Formica, was that the company had turned a corner with legacy issues put behind it and with the stability necessary to move ahead.

The leadership structure change sees Sophia Rahmani appointed to the role of managing director of Magellan’s main operating subsidiary Magellan Asset Management effective from May, while the executive chair, Formica, retaining his executive position for at least 12 months before reverting to non-executive chair.

Rahmani yesterday resigned her position as chief executive and managing director of Maple-Brown Abbott where she had been since 2019, prior to which she was chief operating officer, Pan Asia, for Janus Henderson Investors based in Singapore.

Announcing the changes to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) at the same time as releasing the company’s half-year result, Formica claimed that a number of important legacy issues were now behind Magellan.

“In parallel with these important steps, we have made progress on our strategic agenda, including announcing today an enhanced and refocused US distribution platform, disclosing plans to launch a new product, the Magellan Unconstrained Fund, to retail investors, progressing development of our Employee Equity Plan, and seeing the positive after-tax contribution from our associate investments”.

Notwithstanding the 24% lift in statutory NPAT, the Magellan announcement to the ASX confirmed that average funds under management were down by 31% from the same period last year to $36.9 billion,

The board declared an interim dividend of 29.4 cents per share 50% franked.