That is actually a GREAT question.MQG has been my most...

That is actually a GREAT question.

MQG has been my most successful equity investment of all time thus far, and what sets it apart from MFG are basically that the fact it's investment management business is far larger, and far more diversified.

Think of MFG as a one-trick, and one-name pony. MFG's success and perception was entirely predicated on the performance of its global equity fund, which was predicated on the grandiose brand image of its jockey Hamish Douglass. The jockey fell down (Hamish's decision to go max cash in 2020) and then the pony is now wandering aimlessly (underperforming).

With Magellan you get many ponies and many jockeys. All that being said, funds management is still a brutal business in the context of how we as shareholders earn success. More and more investors are asking each day: "Why would I pay an active manager 1% plus when I can pay as little as 0.04%?" for an Aussie equity strategy.

But the beauty of MQG is that it goes far beyond funds management and into capital markets and 'proprietary' asset management of being able to buy hard assets such as airports and energy grids and basically milk money from them and sell it at a higher price. So you're simply getting a lot more and MQG is extremely impressive as far as its risk management goes and its willingness to not pay shareholders 100% of profits so that it can actually focus on growth.

Now all that being said, I still wouldn't recommend individual stocks for anyone.

Investment property + ASX 200 + S&P 500 = sleep at night. There is no risk of any of those things turning into an MFG - with individual stocks, even with MQG, there always is that chance.