Inside the room at Magellan's sombre AGM
There were times when the fund manager's high profile directors including Hamish McLennan and John Eales appeared as though they were attending their own funerals.
The mood was bleak inside the conference room at Sydney's Fullerton Hotel on Wednesday morning as the board of embattled fund manager Magellan fronted shareholders for its annual general meeting. At times its high profile board directors appeared as though they were attending their own funerals.
Executive chairman Andrew Formica (who took on the chairman role in August, and then added the executive prefix in October after former CEO David George departed) struck a conciliatory tone and conceded it would be a “long path back to recovery”.
“I acknowledge and appreciate we have tried your patience over the last two years. The significant reduction in the share price, driven by the large shift in client assets we manage, has created a very difficult position for our long-standing shareholders,” Formica told the room.
The last two years he referred to have been tumultuous. During that period Magellan lost star stock picker Hamish Douglass, watched its share price collapse 80% and has struggled to quell a mass exodus out of its underperforming investment funds.
