In terms of the some speculation in the AFR of networks of...

In terms of the some speculation in the AFR of networks of financial advisors and institutional investors discussing rapid reduction in holdings of Magellan funds it clearly hasn't occurred yet. If anything the situation may be marginally better than expected in terms of outflows, although I'd be more worried about the next 2-3 months. The media situation and focus on returns has only boiled over the past month or so, its possible other institutional investors are in planning stage for drawdowns but the process isn't immediate. In most cases decisions regarding billions of dollars aren't going to be made overnight and its likely that most holders have broader timeframes for investment.

Regardless, I don't think a single institutional client of MFG would be ignorant enough to ignore various abysmal decisions made by Hamish in the past 12 months, particularly the cash allocation at the peak of market fear and the investment in Chinese stocks. The fund is still underperforming on short term 3 - 6 month metrics as well which keeps this in the spotlight.

Looking at potential future reductions to earnings and potential dividend yield reduction nothing here is currently particularly egregious, the stock is already priced as if its on the verge of losing 30-50% of FUM in comparison to all time peaks. There's not a huge amount to read into this update.

The reason I sold the stock at a bit over $30 is because it was clearly becoming a gamble in regards to how long institutional clients would put up with extensive underperformance. "Value" for a stock like this doesn't mean anything if the majority of clients look to various funds that are consistently outperforming and have more positive media reputations. At the same time, its plausible if the company retains clients and outperforms by a few percent over the next few years that the stock is back to $40-50 on a pure earnings basis.

But if I'm looking at those kind of gambles, I'd rather look at altcoins in crypto or something like a leveraged index fund such as UPRO. Its quite clear in my opinion that the future of this company is a reflection of out/underperformance (regardless of what Hamish would like to think) and secondly the thoughts of its largest clients about whether to stick by the company over the long haul. I ultimately think Hamish made extensive bad decisions the last few years and lacks the modesty to acknowledge much of it, I'm honestly not convinced the outperformance will return in time. If that's the case the stock could go lower.