Macquarie joins stampede away from stocks and bonds investing

AFR

Macquarie says it will divest its entire North American and European public asset management business to Japan’s Nomura for $2.8 billion, unwinding a strategy hit by a marked shift to more passive investment styles. Macquarie Asset Management, as the division is known, will continue to operate in Australia but will sell its international equities, fixed income and multi-asset investments business, which oversees $285 billion in assets. The deal is significant for the group given it represents more than a quarter of the $942.7 billion the asset management division oversaw as of December 31, of which $571 billion was invested across publicly traded markets.

The transaction will reshape the banking and asset management giant, more than 15 years after its then-chief executive, Nicholas Moore, led it deeper into American public markets investments. Since then, public market investments have become dominated by massive, low-fee funds such as BlackRock and Vanguard that focus more on passive styles of investments rather than stock picking. Private investments have also become more important, drawing asset managers that can charge higher fees.

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