Harry, you could well be correct. However, it does demonstrate that Hamish & co that they are willing to take substantial action to close the discount. I'd put my chips on significant action to close the MGF discount.
Keeping in mind that Magellans' flagship strategy has generated returns net of fees of 16.12% over 12 years vs 13.89% benchmark. Out performance of 2.23% pa.
As per the below 'rolling annual returns' graphic, the recent mis-step by Magellan is the first time in 10 years they have substantially under performed (some minor under-performance during recovery in 2017). Those judging Magellan's short-term returns since the transition to MGF need a reality check - under-performance over a 6 month timeframe is completely irrelevant & meaningless. This is a high quality fund who are likely to substantially out-perform over rolling 5-7 year periods.