Bloomberg event/article

Magellan Seeking to List Global Stock Fund for Pension Savers



By Adam Haigh and Narayanan Somasundaram
Sept. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Magellan Financial Group Ltd. is
seeking to list a global stocks fund to draw investment from
Australian individuals managing their retirement savings.
Allowing investors to trade the open-ended fund on an
exchange would make it more appealing to the self-managed
superannuation industry, Magellan Chairman Brett Cairns said at
the Bloomberg Summit in Sydney today. If the Sydney-based asset
manager proceeds with the listing, it will offer a new fund that
mirrors the investment strategy of the A$5.6 billion ($5.1
billion) Magellan Global Fund, he said.
“We’ve spent a lot of time and effort over the past six
months,” working on solving the practical issues needed to
complete the listing, Cairns said. “Hopefully we’re getting to
the end of it.”
Australia’s A$1.85 trillion pension savings industry
includes more than A$550 billion that is managed by individuals.
After mostly ignoring the do-it-yourselfers for the two decades
since SMSFs were started, major banks and financial
institutions, including AMP Ltd., Commonwealth Bank of Australia
and Westpac Banking Corp., are now seeking a slice of the fees
the funds generate.
The Magellan Global Fund, run by Chief Executive Officer
and co-founder Hamish Douglass, gained 24 percent per year over
the past three years, according to a report on its website.
Those returns beat all except one of the 368 global equity funds
available in Australia with more than $100 million in assets
over the period through Sept. 9, according to data compiled by
Bloomberg.
North American stocks made up 42 percent of the fund’s
holdings at the end of last month, with its 10 biggest
investments including Microsoft Corp. and Oracle Corp.
Magellan’s board is yet to decide to proceed with the
listing, Cairns said.
“There’s some real tensions between those that manage
money and actually have some intellectual property that they’re
trying to protect, and actually being able to put that on an
exchange,” he said during the panel discussion. Magellan is
working through those issues, he said.