Full Year 2023 Macquarie Group Ltd Earnings Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Jonathan Mott - Barrenjoey Markets Pty Limited, Research Division - Analyst : Two questions, if I could, I'll break them up. The first one, around the world, we've -- well, if you look at Macquarie over an extended period of time, you're seeing an ongoing movement into GFC into unlisted assets. And people would really like that because it avoids the volatility and you get stable long-term returns. But at the same time, there's a push overseas in the U.S. and around the world that maybe these assets, and especially commercial property, haven't been marked properly and there's a liquidity issue at the same time. And this is getting a lot of regulators to focus on, on this issue. Do you see this as a potential risk that over the next 5, 10 years, maybe even a shorter time frame, that there's going to be a regulatory push back into more liquid, more marked assets that could potentially make unlisted assets less attractive?

Question: Jonathan Mott - Barrenjoey Markets Pty Limited, Research Division - Analyst : And second question, if I could. When you look at this result, we've never seen a result by Macquarie, which is so heavily skewed into one division, CGM making 58% of the contribution. It's also the most capital intensive of the division. The other divisions did okay with the Banking and Financial Services growing. The others were pretty soft. When you see a year like this which is so heavily skewed, how do you manage the staff compensation ratio? And when it is a year like this where some of the divisions haven't performed well and a more capital-intensive division is really driving the results, shouldn't shareholders receive a larger proportion of those returns? So how do you manage this? And I know you'll say that the profit share has worked well for many, many years, we've never seen a year as skewed as this.