Macquarie boss sees green opportunities despite a half-year result in the red
Shemara Wikramanayake tells Capital Brief she isn't worried about the backlash against woke capitalism and sees green opportunities ahead.
Macquarie Group’s key stats were a sea of red as it kicked off major bank reporting season with an interim result. Deep reds too — net profit was down 39% on the first half of 2023 and 51% on six months ago. Return on equity crashed to 8.7%, annualised, compared with 16.9% in FY2023. The dividend was cut.
That red was staunched by an unexpected buyback announcement which the bank argued demonstrated both caution and an excess of capital.
Yet the major theme of the result was green. A lag in the realisation of the value in green investments was the major factor in the weaker result and culled the net profit contribution of Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) 71%.
As chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake told Capital Brief, there are two elements to the green story. One is the impact on today’s profit of the lag in the realisation cycle — where Macquarie buys green assets, develops them and then on-sells them, either to external buyers or its own funds — and the other is the bank’s longer term ambition.
