There is no business quite like Macquarie Group in Australia. Homegrown but global, diversified and deep in markets, it seemingly has a finger in every pie. It’s what made today’s operational update from Martin Place — and the investment bank’s view on markets — so compelling.
This month AI rankled the market as investors woke up to the threat the technology poses to software companies. It’s a global story and one to which Macquarie would appear to be exposed, but not in the way you would expect.
“We have little exposure in our asset manager, which is where the share prices of a lot of our peers have suffered,” chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake said. “It’s really, as you say, in the private credit and the private equity books. Headline, we do have 25%-30% in SaaS businesses.”
In other words, these exposures sit on Macquarie's own balance sheet, rather than external funds it manages for fees.
