Not sure what you mean about the management fee being a...

Not sure what you mean about the management fee being a positive. If you're referring to the performance fee, that is actually a negative. Because the price of HDF securities outperformed the ASX200 for the period July to December, Hastings Funds Mgt (HFM, not HDF) "earn" a performance fee of $18.4M.

The only positive is that the fee is paid to them in the form of additional securities. Fortunately, the securities are issued at a minimum price of $2.56. My calcs show HFM will pick up nearly 7.2 million securities, which are now worth just $4M.