Good morning, everyone. I'm Stu Kingham, Head of Investor Relations, and thank you for joining us today. We're delighted to present the results of Magellan Financial Group for the 2026 year. It's been a significant period for both MFG and Barrenjoey. Today, we've released financial information for MFG, Barrenjoey, and provided a pro forma combined view. Today, you'll hear from Brian Benari, MFG Chief Executive Officer, and Gavin Buchanan, Chief Financial Officer. This will be followed by a question and answer session. With that, let me hand over to Brian.
Thanks very much, Stu, and good morning, and thank you all for joining us. I'm delighted to be the new CEO of MFG and to take you through our FY 2026 results, our first results since the merger. I'm joined today by Gavin Buchanan, Chief Financial Officer. Gavin has a background in financial markets and brings extensive experience in funds management and financial control, making him the ideal CFO for the merged group. Today's presentation will walk through the 30 June results for MFG in isolation, and it will also build a full picture of performance for the year for both MFG and Barrenjoey and show what the combined group looks like. Firstly, I'll provide an update on the business today before handing to Gavin to cover the financial performance. After that, I will share our plans for what's ahead, including our near-term priorities.
Before we get into the group update, I want to take a moment to recall the rationale for the merger. We have brought together two highly complementary Australian businesses. Combined, they will deliver an enhanced client proposition, a more diversified and resilient business, and a strong balance sheet providing capacity for growth. We have also taken decisive actions to lay the groundwork for our next phase of growth. Integration is on track. The restructure of the Heritage Global Equity Funds was completed in June, providing investors with a lower cost offering backed by a strong track record of performance. Consolidation and de-risking of invested capital has been completed, which will reduce profit and loss volatility. Finally, growth opportunities have been identified for each business, and we will prioritize and execute these in a structured and disciplined way. Let me turn now to what the group looks like today.
From 1 July, we operate across three distinct business lines. Financial markets, our fixed income and equity sales, trading and financing business, and our market-leading research capability. Corporate finance, M&A strategic and debt advisory, and equity and debt capital markets. Investment management, our public and private markets investment capability. The FY26 revenue split shows a three-way balanced business. No single pillar dominates. We've previously announced that subject to shareholder approval at our AGM in October, MFG will formally become Barrenjoey Group Limited. It's more than a name change. It reflects the scale and ambition of the combined business and the reality of what we've built, a staff-aligned, client-focused financial services group. This slide tells a story of how we got here. Barrenjoey has scaled from a startup into a key player across all of its businesses. Note the half-on-half trends for corporate finance and financial markets since establishment.
Five years of consistent compounding growth across differing market conditions. Importantly, that growth hasn't been lumpy. We see very little evidence of half-on-half seasonality, which speaks to the durability of the franchise we've built. Investment management, which is now hitting 20 years in market, has in recent years had revenues impacted principally by the unwind of the global listed infrastructure. The core business remains resilient and cash generative with a strong distribution platform, which speaks to one of the key rationales for our merger. Diversified revenues across complementary capabilities smooth the combined group's earnings profile through the cycle. On a pro forma basis, in the FY 2026 year, the combined group generated AUD 778 million of revenue and AUD 215 million of operating earnings after tax. Turning to where we are today, less than two months post-completion.
The majority of our people are now in the same building with the remaining team relocating within two weeks. We expect to have migrated onto common core systems by 31 December and complete integration by 30 June 2027. Synergies will be progressively realized across the year. We're already seeing identified merger benefits. Our expanded portfolio of alternative asset products is gaining traction. The newly established Barrenjoey Asset Backed Income Fund has increased AUM by 42% in just three months and the Barrenjoey First Ag Credit Fund by 15%. This underscores that combining Barrenjoey's origination capability with MFG's distribution reach works in practice. We're also making targeted hires across our platform to strengthen and diversify our client offering. With that, let me hand over to Gavin, who will take you through how MFG and Barrenjoey each performed over the year, and how the two come together in the combined group result.
Gavin, over to you.
Thank you, Brian. Good morning and welcome everyone joining on the call. From today's presentation, you'll clearly see the building blocks that make up the standalone performance of each of MFG and Barrenjoey, and how these combine to form a pro forma merged result for the group. This pro forma shows what the year would have looked like had we merged on the 1st of July 2025, rather than the 1st of July 2026. We then go a step further, showing the expected impact to future earnings of management actions taken late in the year, restructuring the Heritage Global Equity Funds, and de-risking the group's capital. This approach paints a clear picture of some of the expected financial outcomes as we head into our first year, a year of transition as we integrate both businesses.
Now before turning to the results, I would also like to note that we have published a detailed investor report on both MFG's and Barrenjoey's current and historical financial performance. The investor report and Barrenjoey's audited financial report for 2026 are available from our shareholder center.
Starting with MFG's standalone financial performance. Operating profit for the year was impacted by an 11% reduction in revenue to AUD 291 million. Investment management revenue declined 21%, or AUD 53 million before tax, and I will go through the drivers of this shortly. Partially offsetting this was strong growth in partnerships income, up 70% underpinned by Barrenjoey's growth. Operating expenses were tightly managed, down 2% despite the higher inflationary environment. Investment income, largely the return on fund investments, fell 14% to AUD 45 million, reflecting lower capital gains being available to distribute. With the lower revenue and continued cost control, operating profit after tax was AUD 145 million, down 9%.
Statutory earnings or net profit after tax was AUD 88 million, down 47%, with a number of non-recurring and non-cash items impacting the result, particularly in the second half. These included a AUD 38 million negative fair value movement on fund investments, as well as AUD 11 million of merger related costs, which were largely advisor, legal and property transition costs. As Brian mentioned, we have recently changed how capital is invested to remove much of this volatility in the future, and I will go through this shortly.
Turning to the drivers of the lower investment management revenue. This starts with net flows and how they contributed to changes in the composition of AUM. Net outflows for the year were AUD 3.3 billion, largely contained to Magellan Global Equities. Airlie and Vinva together delivered positive net inflows totaling AUD 1.5 billion, more than offsetting the modest outflows in global listed infrastructure.
Of the AUD 4.2 billion of Magellan Global Equities net outflows, close to 90% came from high margin retail products, and this shift is clear in the retail mix at the bottom of the table. As announced previously, management has taken action to improve client outcomes by repricing and transitioning investment management of two Heritage Global Equity Funds to Vinva. This resulted in the transition of AUD 4.9 billion of AUM, which can be seen moving between the products in the table. Since the transition, we have seen outflows continue as advisors meet with their clients and assess the change of strategy. Now looking at the composition of AUM and management fees in more detail. With outflows contained to the retail global equities products, the mix between strategies has shifted materially over the past two years. You can see this on the chart on the left-hand side.
The dark blue is Magellan Global Equities, which represented 43% of AUM two years ago, and the global opportunity strategy remains, which was 8% of AUM at 30 June. This shift in AUM contribution has had a significant impact on management fees. Average management fees fell from 61 basis points - 52 basis points in 2026, a 15% reduction. Nearly all of the nine basis point decline reflects the change in AUM composition away from higher margin retail. Repricing the global equity funds and transitioning to Vinva occurred in May, only having a one basis point impact for the year. As a result, the 2026 average management fee of 52 basis points does not fully reflect the go-forward run rate. The exit rate of 42 basis points is a better starting point for both impacts as we move into FY 2027. With that, let us move to Barrenjoey.
Barrenjoey is a fast-growing, high-returning business with significant operating leverage. Operating profit after tax increased 68% to AUD 112 million, driven by strong growth across all three businesses, which I'll take you through on the next slide. ROE is now nearly 33%, up from 24% just two years ago, a clear sign of the improvement in earnings, which has also seen operating leverage emerge as the business scales. You can see this reflected in the cost-to-income ratio falling 12 percentage points over the same period, while the compensation ratio has remained consistent. Turning now to Barrenjoey's revenue for the year. Total revenue of AUD 573 million was up 34%, with strong growth from all three businesses, reflecting increased client activity and the returns from earlier years' investment in revenue-generating capability. Financial markets revenue was up 40% year-on-year.
A combination of more client activity, increased market share, and higher global market volatility all served to deliver a record year. Corporate finance, our longest-running and most established business, was up 20%, with particularly strong growth in equity and debt capital markets. Advisory revenue also grew during the year, coming off the back of advising on AUD 25 billion of M&A transactions as well as from investment in our teams to expand sector coverage. Favorable market conditions lifted equity capital markets, although the conflict in the Middle East and other factors weighed on IPO activity, which has remained subdued. Debt capital markets activity was strong throughout the year, with Barrenjoey appointed as lead manager on over 100 transactions for a range of issuers across government, semi-government, corporate hybrid, and asset backed. Private capital, our newest business, saw substantial revenue growth.
Its fee model is aligned to client outcomes, earning performance fees when superior investment outcomes are delivered. This was highlighted by a AUD 22 million performance fee earned from the Guzman y Gomez investment in the first half. All three businesses have an exciting pipeline of growth opportunities aimed at expanding both clients and products, which Brian will touch on shortly. Now we bring MFG and Barrenjoey together to build the 2026 pro forma profit for the combined group. The combination of the two organizations would have generated AUD 778 million of revenue, with all three business lines contributing roughly one-third each. After deducting expenses and tax and eliminating Barrenjoey's profit from investment management revenue, operating profit was AUD 215 million. There are a couple of items below operating profit that are worth highlighting.
Fair value movements on fund investments have historically been volatile, with a AUD 38 million after-tax adverse impact on net profit for this period. Moving this capital to cash and high-quality liquid fixed income will reduce this volatility.
Equity ownership has been central to Barrenjoey's philosophy. Everyone is an owner. We've facilitated this by granting shares to employees when they started. The majority of these were granted when Barrenjoey was established, and the bulk of the employees were hired. This cost amortizes over time and importantly is non-cash, with all recurring cash employee and bonus expenses included in operating expenses. This cost has gone up this year as a direct result of the merger, with modifications made, including changes to the vesting structure and higher valuation. MFG's merger-related share of this expense is AUD 4.9 million, which you can see being allocated to MFG and then eliminated on the right-hand side.
We've also shown MFG's share of Barrenjoey's own merger-related costs, which is also eliminated on the right-hand side. All of this results in a pro forma statutory net profit after tax for the combined group of AUD 146 million. Finally, we have not published a pro forma balance sheet for the combined group today as the standard acquisition accounting and valuation process is ongoing. With the merger only completing on the 1st of July, this process hasn't been finalized. When it has, we will publish a pro forma combined group balance sheet. The combined group holds high levels of cash and capital, providing financial flexibility and opportunities for disciplined investment. As part of coming together, MFG took the opportunity to review how its fund investments were invested. It made the decision to redeem AUD 251 million from various Magellan funds, leaving AUD 118 million as seed capital.
From here, the treasury team will manage this capital and invest in cash products and high-quality liquid fixed income, resulting in reduced earnings volatility, but more importantly, reduced risk.
I want to address the management actions that will impact earnings into FY 2027. Firstly, as we've been through, we've restructured and repriced the Magellan Global Equity Funds, appointing Vinva as investment manager. While a small impact from the repricing was felt this year, the full impact will land in FY 2027. Fees were reduced by 55 basis points, resulting in an estimated revenue reduction of AUD 21 million after tax. Partially offsetting this is AUD 5 million of after-tax expense savings, largely from a smaller portfolio management team. Secondly, as I've just mentioned, in order to reduce risk, we have made changes to how capital is managed. With less risk, there will be lower operating earnings contribution than in the past.
We expect this to be about a AUD 17 million after-tax impact relative to FY 2026. It is important to note that while these decisions have a short-term financial impact, they have been taken to strengthen and make our company more resilient for the longer term. Finally, the board has resolved to pay a fully franked second half dividend of AUD 0.255 per share. This is based on MFG's and Barrenjoey's combined second half operating profit after tax and represents a payout ratio of 80%, consistent with current MFG policy. As part of the merger, the board has considered this dividend policy for the combined group and has settled on one which seeks to balance the capital needs of the group with shareholder dividends. From FY 2027, and subject to board discretion, the target payout ratio will be between 60% and 90% of the combined group's operating profit after tax.
We expect to initially be towards the top end of this range. In summary, I want to leave you with three points. First, MFG took action to reposition the global equity funds with clients and to de-risk its capital. Second, Barrenjoey brings a demonstrated growth track record, one that has been executed efficiently and with discipline. Finally, together, these two businesses are powerful, delivering a scalable platform with diversified earnings from which to build into the future. I will now hand back to Brian.
Thanks very much, Gavin. I want to return to the diversification and resilience theme I opened with and be clear on the revenue drivers. It's helpful for how you should think about our earnings going forward. Starting with corporate finance, you will have noted the year-to-year growth achieved by the business through differing market cycles. Our breadth of sector coverage and client relationships provides diversification. That breadth is key to our earnings resilience, deals ebb and flow by sector and by client, and a broad base smooths that out over the cycle. Implicit within the business is a range of repeatable revenues. An example of this is the debt and capital advisory side. We assist our clients with financing and refinancing year in, year out. Another good example is the debt capital markets, where we are averaging two deals a week, many of which are from repeat issuers.
Now bringing this together, while corporate finance revenues may be transactional in nature, they are diversified across a breadth of sectors and relationships and can be repeatable. This continues to smooth the revenue and has provided growth since inception. Turning to financial markets, the fixed income business is worth a special note of explanation. This is a client-led flow business. Clients come to us to trade in and out of bonds and interest rate swaps. Our role is as an intermediary. We make the market, and we capture a spread when matching our buyer and seller clients. Our in-house rates strategy and economics research sharpens our read on the rate cycle, credit conditions, and issuer positioning. This intelligence and deep market understanding attracts client flow, broadening our client base. Finally, this business benefits from higher market volatility as it drives client portfolio repositioning.
Investment management sits firmly at the annuity end of the revenue spectrum. AUM is driven by quality, relevant client offerings, and investment performance. The scale along the bottom of this slide shows a spectrum from more diversified transaction-based revenue through to durable and annuity style income. What the merger gives us is exposure across that very spectrum simultaneously. Our annuity style investment management revenue provides ballast with financial markets having delivered durable earnings across varying market conditions. The balance that we talk about sits at the heart of the investment case for the combined group. This slide seeks to bring to life our approach and track record to building and growing Barrenjoey. Evidence that when we say structured and disciplined growth, we mean something very specific. It's not just a tagline. Since commencement of each Barrenjoey business, we have incrementally expanded client offerings and our client base.
We have done this in a very programmatic way to deliver sustainable business growth. From our first M&A mandate in December 2020 and first cash equities trade through to today, ranking number one in M&A, equity sales and research, and one of Australia's leading fixed income franchises. Our research covers around 250 listed companies in addition to sectors and economics. It's not just breadth, it's quality. Barrenjoey has more number one-rated research analysts than the entire rest of market. More recently, we've been expanding our client base through geographic reach. Building on our Barclays strategic alliance, we established a presence in Abu Dhabi Global Market in 2024 to support the Northern Hemisphere fixed income clients. In 2025, we opened our Hong Kong office to grow our equities franchise. The point of showing this is simple.
We see a range of opportunities and are continuing to invest for the future. We will take the same disciplined approach to executing on these new opportunities. Our team are aligned with shareholders and are here for the long term. This creates a continuing focus to invest with a long-term mindset. FY 2027 will be a year of transition for Barrenjoey as we move through integration. Our priorities are clear. First, we are focused on completing and capturing the benefits of the merger. This is a top priority. We expect to start to extract the merger benefits that will arise over the integration. Second, we are extending our offerings and client reach. We have built a strong reputation for our deep continued focus on Australian and New Zealand products. The opportunity is to extend and strengthen client reach into international jurisdictions.
A good example is the establishment of the U.S. swap dealer license, positioning ourselves with U.S. Nexus clients as a preeminent global provider of Aussie and Kiwi dollar fixed income product. With the license now granted, we executed our first U.S. trades a few weeks ago. We are also adding to our Abu Dhabi global market team to continue the success we have had in servicing the European and Middle East markets and strengthening the New York presence for our equities business. Third, investment management opportunities. We have a great platform for growth, including strong distribution, and it is critical that we seed and develop more investment opportunities to meet client demand. In recent years, there has been a material shift in investor appetite, particularly towards private market opportunities, and we are in a good position to capitalize on the changing landscape.
To this end, we are in the process of adding new offerings in both our private capital and listed equities business. Importantly, we recognize that we invest and build today for the benefit of years to come. Finally, Barrenjoey New Zealand. Barrenjoey New Zealand is an investment for the future. We are excited about the opportunity set, and we have hired some exceptional talent into that business, which will be locally managed. We think of it in three phases. 2027 will be the year of build and establishment, 2028 is commencement, and 2029 is where we start to see the benefits come through. To bring it together, firstly, this has been a landmark year, having completed a merger of two complementary companies. Secondly, our group today is genuinely diversified across revenue and clients, with all the right foundations in place for our next phase of growth.
Finally, we will continue to grow each business and deliver with the same structured and disciplined approach that has been a hallmark of Barrenjoey since inception. I want to take this opportunity to thank our exceptional team and our shareholders for their continued support. With that, Gavin and I are happy to take your questions.
Thank you, Brian. We will now turn to the Q&A process. Can I please remind you to state your name and the company you represent when asking a question? Thank you, operator.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you do wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before asking your question. Today's first question will come from Elizabeth Miliatis with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Good morning, gents, and thanks for taking my questions. The first one is just on the financial markets business. Particularly if we just look at the first half and second half revenue numbers in your presentation pack. Obviously, adjusting for seasonality, it seems to have slowed a little bit from the first to the second half. How should we think about the outlook over the next few years? Particularly, if you could make particular comments on what you are excited about from the fixed income business and do you expect revenue to accelerate from here, noting you have had a very good period over the last 12 months or so there?
Yeah, Liz, Brian Benari. Maybe I will have a go at that one and then Gavin can add as required. The way we think about the financial markets business, it is broadly split pretty broadly between equities and the fixed income business. Obviously, you are very au fait with the equities side. Both of these businesses are activity driven. It is fair to say that the fixed income business certainly benefits from volatility. Indeed, actually, that can act as quite a good buffer for us. When you see that volatility, sometimes equity markets slow somewhat, but we get the benefit of the fixed income business on the other side as people look to rebalance their bond portfolios. The interplay between the two of those has meant that we have seen what we would term pretty durable income.
If you actually look at that business over a series of cycles since commencing those businesses when they really were, in earnest, both up and running from 2023, we've seen that growth half-to-half coming through. Inevitably, differing market conditions serve up differing levels of activity. As I said, there's somewhat of a buffering impact that happens with the interplay between fixed income and equities. We'll continue to build those businesses out. What we see is the growth to date and the continuing growth to date has all been about expanding our product offering as well as broadening our client base. I've talked about our client base already. We see opportunities around the more the low touch side. On the equity side, we see opportunities in respect to building out our financing offering as well.
I'm very confident in respect to the future for the business, but obviously, there's always market impacts.
Yeah. Liz, I'll just add to that, what Brian's saying, just to deal with your question around the actual half-and-half split, and just to give you some flavor there. I think it speaks to the diversified nature of the business that we've got. I think you would probably acknowledge that it was a very active first half in equities, but a much quieter second half in equities as a result, principally of the conflict in the Middle East. Conversely, fixed income picked up in the second half, principally because of the conflict in the second half. As Brian said, as a client-led flow business, as conditions warrant, clients were a little bit more active in the second half on the fixed income side. You can see the balance of those two things coming through in the first half and the second half.
Okay, got it. Maybe just a follow-up question. I think the fixed income business is a bit newer versus the equities business. Do you expect that there'll be continued sort of market share gains in that particular segment?
Yeah. We would hope so. I think both of these, I'd say both of the businesses demonstrated good growth over this last period or over each of the periods. We are seeing growth across both of them. But we would hopefully continue to and expect to continue to grow out each of them.
Okay, got it. Then just a second question, just on the private markets business. You alluded to expanding your product offering there, but just would be curious to get a bit more color on what does that look like. I think at the moment you are more at single asset type funds. Are you looking to expand into multi-asset funds, particular asset classes? I presume, obviously, just still in Australia, but yeah, any more color on what that actually looks like going forward?
Yeah, certainly, Liz. So you are exactly right. When we started this business, and it is the newest of our businesses, we started off with single assets, typically around private equity positions and opportunities, single asset funds, with clear exit strategies for each of those. And that was across all sorts of different underlyings. The performance to date has been very, very good, and I think we have started to build a track record in that regard. And we have also seen exits, like for instance, the GYG one where investors have done very well. The next stage is setting up open-ended funds, as you said, and there are two of those two new funds that have been established. One is the Barrenjoey First Ag Credit Fund, which is a credit fund. And the second one is the Barrenjoey Asset Backed Income Fund. Both of those are open-ended.
Both of those are the ones where we have turned the Magellan distribution fire hose towards, in order to start to build that out. It is early days, but we are certainly, if you can see the picture arising here, that we are starting to develop the business. Not necessarily that we will not still have single asset funds, but we are starting to open it up more to have open-ended funds as well. It is early days, though, Liz, I will make that point. It is very much early days.
Yep, got it. And maybe if I can sneak one third question in as well. Just on the investment management business, particularly with the transition to Vinva for global equities money, I think on our numbers, the business is probably not making a decent or much profit in maybe about 12 months' time. How are you thinking about the broader cost base? Not perhaps specifically in the investment teams, but more broadly in Magellan. Will there be more synergies to flow through as you work through that cost base from a sort of back office perspective and distribution team?
Yeah, Liz, good question. What I'd say is that we've moved the funds across to Vinva. The way I think about it is we had a fixed cost base of the people managing those funds. We've moved it across to Vinva. That means it's now a variable cost base. So whether it scales up or scales down from where we are today, the cost base in respect to managing those assets will follow that. So I think what was really key, and it was great that Sophia and the team got that restructure completed in June, is that what they've effectively done is moved what I would say is a very older structure and offering into a much more contemporary offering.
I think the offering through Vinva, who's got a great track record there, is really beneficial for the ultimate investor, and obviously they've also seen that reduction in fees that they're paying. So I think that means that that product is now much more contemporary in nature. It's now for us to watch, and see actions that any of the investors will take, and monitor that. I note that, and Gav mentioned this, if you were to look at all the offerings at Magellan, the one that had the sustained reduction was the global offering. It peaked at AUD 88 billion. Today, it's in the fours. We would hope that that runoff abates, but that's not going to be up to us. That will be up to the investors.
Liz, I might just address your question around synergies as well, and what you can expect from there. We called out as part of the merger that we would deliver AUD 6 million pre-tax of synergies. We're on track to do that. They are principally focused around technology and supplier harmonization between the two businesses. This merger wasn't about trying to harvest synergies. They're two complementary businesses rather than overlapping businesses. As you can imagine, pulling the two teams together, we've only just done that, and so we're working through that with both businesses, but confident that we'll be able to deliver that synergies number.
Okay. Thanks for taking my questions.
Your next question comes from Siddharth Parameswaran with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. I had two. One was just on thinking about FY 2027. You give us a good slide there on slide 17, just on the expected impacts of the management actions you are taking. I would just like to clarify what is and what is not included in those numbers as we should think about forecasting our FY 2027 numbers. Can you just clarify firstly that the FY 2026 number includes the pro forma numbers for Barrenjoey, including that step up for the restructuring costs, sorry, the restructured arrangement that you had with Barclays? Then, there are no synergies, I take it. They are still to come, and there is no impact in that reduction that you have there on the global equities repricing, the AUD 21 million. There is nothing included there for the lower average FUM as well, right?
Those are the things that if you are on our side of the fence, those are the additional things we should be allowing for. Would that be right, in terms of thinking about FY 2027?
Yeah, thanks Sid, for your question. Let's run through the slide and hopefully we can tick off all of those items that you raised there. First and foremost, no, it doesn't take into consideration the AUM change. That's something that you will need to think about as you work through it. Clearly, average AUM last year was AUD 39.1 billion and we exited FY 2026 at AUD 36.7 billion. So that definitely needs to be taken into consideration. We called out as part of the merger, that there would be some legacy arrangements that would fall away as a result of the merger. They are in the FY 2026 result. That is something that you need to take into consideration.
Really, all we are trying to do in the slide is point out that there were two key management actions that were taken in the year that do have an impact on the earnings. But there are a whole host of other things that you need to think about, not least of which is, what are you going to do from a financial markets and corporate finance perspective as well? Because that will also obviously impact the earnings going forward.
Okay. I think that does address those questions. Okay. Maybe I'm going to ask a second one then, just relating to some of the actions you're taking in 2027, 2028. You said that you're investing in, I think, expanding New Zealand in particular. Maybe if you could just comment. We've had a lot of investment in the business. It's been matched by revenues. But just your expectation on this investment. Are we likely to see a drag on earnings into 2027 from the pro forma numbers that we've seen from the investments that you're making? Or will the growth from the other divisions offset?
Yeah. Hi, Sid. Brian Benari. Let me say, first of all, in respect to investing, we continue to invest across all of our different businesses with a whole series of different initiatives in order to broaden our product and our base of clients, and I made reference to that today. Great example of that is the U.S. swap dealer. All the work that's been done on that over the last 1.5 years has already been expensed and is our numbers, as opposed to the revenues. We should start to get some of the benefits of that coming through this year. And it will be gradual because we've got to onboard the clients, etc . When you go to New Zealand, as I said earlier, we sort of see it in three phases. FY 2027 is establishment, 2028 is up and running, 2029, benefits arising.
Once we get up and running, we will obviously benefit from the arrangement with Craigs, whereby we will provide them execution and research services, which we will get revenue from. To try and size that maybe is really helpful. The way to think about it is, in the next year, FY 2027, maybe the way to think about it is that we expect the total costs in respect of that, we will run through the P&L on that, will be in the vicinity of 1%-2% of the total cost base, AUD 5 million-AUD 10 million. That is sort of what you should expect to come through in the 2027 year, Sid.
That is super helpful. Thank you. The revenues come later. That is super helpful. Then just the last question, just on capital. You give us a very helpful slide there showing us the capital you have, on slide 16. I think AUD 611 million. Can we take that as effectively your net tangible assets? If I could just ask, how should we think about the capital requirements for the go-forward business? How much is surplus? What do you need for some of the initiatives you are taking?
Yeah, thanks, Sid. Dealing with your first question, is it the NTA of the business? No, it is not. I think one of the things, which is a little bit difficult, obviously, not having a balance sheet to put in front of you today is to give you that sense. I can give you a sense of where the net asset position is going to be for the organization. If you look at either the MFG financial statements or the Barrenjoey financial statements and go to the subsequent event note, you can see some detail around this. There is a number of AUD 872 million that you would add to the existing net asset position of Barrenjoey, and you will get yourself to about AUD 1.1 billion of net assets.
There is some work to be done, obviously, in the valuation process that will then determine how much of that will be goodwill. We are not expecting that to be a material number in the process. The second part of your question was capital requirements going forward. Also just to kind of speak to some of that AUD 611 million that we see there. The Barrenjoey number that you see on the slide is really working capital that is in circulation, for our business on an ongoing basis. That is a spot number, obviously, at 30 June. That is used to support all of our businesses at varying points in time. It is important to think about that as well when you do your numbers. From a go-forward perspective, as Brian has mentioned, we are focused on predominantly organic growth in all of our businesses.
We're not going to rule out looking at things. But I think we're very focused on adjacent opportunities in all of our businesses. Swap Dealer is a good example. New Zealand's a good example. They're not material investments per se, at least initially. But we do expect them to deliver revenue into the future.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Julian Braganza with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Just an initial clarification. In terms of the impact of the legacy arrangements coming through the FY 2026 numbers, is that still post-tax circa AUD 12 million? I just want to confirm that point.
Yeah, that's correct, Julian. It's AUD 12 million.
Okay, great. With the legacy employee share plan amortization, I can see that in the footnotes that it's expected to increase to AUD 20 million in FY 2027. I just want to understand what's driving that and also just the profile in terms of the reduction expected into the out-years. Thanks.
Sure. Thanks, Julian. What we did call out in the presentation and in the numbers is that it's a legacy share plan now. Going forward, this plan will not be used. There won't be new issuances into it or out of it. We can be relatively confident around what the numbers are going to look like going forward. What we have said in the presentation in the footnote is that it will go from about AUD 18 million after tax this year. We expect that to be around about AUD 20 million after tax next year, before falling around about AUD 4 million per annum. The increase into next year really comes about as a result of the staggered vesting structure in the scheme, and nothing more than that.
Okay, got it. So that line eventually goes down to zero, is that right?
Yeah.
Over five years?
Correct. Within about five years, you should see that to zero.
Okay, awesome. Just on the AUD 250 million reallocation of fund investments to cash and fixed income , can you be very clear how that AUD 17 million headwind is calculated? Because the footnote seems to suggest relative to FY 2025, if I'm reading that correctly. I just want to understand, one, how they're calculated. Two, what is the return differential that you're kind of assuming versus the 10% pre-tax hurdle for that portfolio historically? What are you kind of expecting going forward as an average return? Thanks.
Yeah, sure. What we've done there is it's really the difference between FY 2026, which was in round numbers, AUD 40 million. What we have done and said in the footnote is assume an average cash balance of AUD 350 million, and that we would be generating circa 4.5%. On current rates, obviously rates are going to move up and down. But on current rates, you're going to generate about 4.5% on that, which is round numbers, AUD 16 million-AUD 17 million. Tax effect that, and you'll get your AUD 17 million difference.
Okay, got it. It is relative to FY 2026 total fund investment returns. Is that right, yeah?
That is correct.
Okay, awesome. Then just a final question from me, actually, maybe just in terms of the outlook on the corporate finance side of the business. Can you maybe just talk at a high level in terms of the pipeline for activities that you are seeing across both M&A and ECM, and then how we should be thinking about that given where we sit today going into first half 2027, and any visibility into the second half as well? Thanks.
Yeah, thanks, Julian. It is Brian. I will take that question. We are seeing a good, solid pipeline, very encouraging pipeline, in respect to that. As I said, there is an amalgam of different types of things that we are providing. It could be IPOs, ECM, DCM, etc . So the pipeline is encouraging, but there is always subject to market conditions. You would know that better than anyone, coming out of Goldman Sachs. So yeah, encouraging as it stands, but always subject to market conditions.
Okay, got it. Just one last final question from me. The 60%-90% dividend payout ratio, how is that calibrated in terms of your view, in terms of what needs to be retained in the business for growth, in terms of capital requirements, funding for organic growth versus what you are paying out? Do we take it that is, I think the midpoint of the 60%-90% is what you are paying, and the inverse is what's funding kind of organic growth? Then also just your kind of medium term view, you can kind of say, look, that will stick towards the top end over the short term before, and maybe drifting lower to the midpoint. I just want to understand what's driving that.
Yeah. Okay, so look, good question. There are a few things that I would think about. What do we take into account here? We take the support of shareholders. We think about the existing capital availability. We think about available franking credits. Also, behind that is obviously the scalable nature of the group, which you have seen our ROEs and what's been able to be generated out of the Barrenjoey business particularly. The dividend today is obviously in line with the MFG payout ratio that was proposed. Going forward, the 60%-90%, we expect it to be at the upper end of the range, I would say, over the short to medium term. Candidly, that's a broad range, and that's why we are guiding to say it's at the upper end. We have only just brought these two companies together.
We are looking at what are the opportunity set for us, as Gavin said. Historically, what we have found is the best ROEs have been off the back of us building stuff ourselves, and we have got a build capability that's obviously well entrenched here at Barrenjoey. In saying that, no doubt there will be, from time to time, inorganic opportunities that come up. We will consider those in line with what all the other organic opportunities are. I think what we are saying on this is, let's start off, let's start it with a 60%-90%. We respect the fact that it's a broad range, but then provide assistance to shareholders and analysts by being able to say that it's at the upper end of the range, and we will be able to reassess that as required as time moves on.
Awesome. Thanks so much for answering my questions. Much appreciated.
Thank you.
Once again, if you do have a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. The next question is from Andrei Stadnik with RBC. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Can I ask my first question just around the growth opportunities you have seen outside of Australia and New Zealand? I think there has been some comments in some press around Asia and Middle East. How are you thinking about growth away from Australia and New Zealand?
Okay, that is a great question. I think I really want to anchor that too, because the way we think about Barrenjoey and the broader MFG is that our business, and let me particularly talk about Barrenjoey for just one moment. The business is an Aussie dollar product business. Equities, fixed income, advising Australian clients around corporate finance, Aussie IPOs, etc . Any actions that we have taken, and this covers off as well on the investment management side that MFG has got. Any actions that we have taken where we have people in Abu Dhabi or we have people in Hong Kong or we have people in New York, it is all about supporting distribution of those Aussie dollar products. This is not about flag planting to start going into whole lots of different other currencies and other business lines.
This is actually acting as a conduit for us to be able to access international clients and opportunities. That is the way we think about it. As we said, we have got the team over in Abu Dhabi that was 2024. 2025 was Hong Kong. And now we will have some people over in New York as well. But it is very much facilitation of the Aussie dollar business that we have got here. On the Magellan side, it is similar. You have got people in the U.K. and you have got people in the U.S. supporting the distribution of the Magellan products manufactured here into those offshore jurisdictions.
Thank you. For my second question, can I ask around the expanded investment management business? You are bringing some of the products that Magellan used to have, combining that with some products Barrenjoey has, and talking about ambition for more private capital products down the train. How are you thinking about that in terms of the build-out and just the expanded opportunity set you are going to be bringing to clients?
Yeah. I will take that one. Look, I think we are super excited. If I think about the opportunity set here, if I think about, first of all, the private capital business that we built, it is quite nascent. We have been able to build out about AUD 5 billion worth of assets under management, initially starting with closed-end funds, now starting to move to open-ended funds. And we think there is more product opportunities, investment opportunities there. If I was to take the Magellan side, I cannot emphasize enough that if you were to look at the offerings that they have got there, the global fund has been the one that has been a runoff. All the other funds have actually performed very well and continue with the same level of AUM.
Combined distribution gives us the capacity to obviously deliver more product out through to clients, and we see growth opportunities on both sides, both on the equity listed style products as well as private capital products. But the most important thing, the most underlying feature, is that we are absolutely focused on whatever product that we elect or fund or offerings that we do have got to be really good for the ultimate investor. And fair to say that, if I was to look at what has been delivered in more recent times or what has been built on the Barrenjoey side, performance has been very, very good. We will continue to grow this out on the basis of offerings that we personally are more than happy to put money into as well. We are all very much aligned to ensuring that we give investors good returns.
We'll grow it out as the opportunities come around. I mentioned that we do see something in the pipeline right at the moment on the listed side, and we also have an opportunity coming down the pipeline right at the moment on the private capital side, which I can't go into details today, but hopefully we'll have those out in the next few months.
Thank you.
There are no further phone questions at this time. I will now hand the call back to Stu Kingham for any closing remarks.
Thank you, operator. There being no further questions, I will actually hand the call to Brian to close. Thank you.
Okay, thanks, Stu, and thanks, operator. If I was to wrap it up, it has been a transformational year, 2026. We have completed the merger, we have restructured the Heritage Magellan Global Equity Funds, and we have materially de-risked the balance sheet. Underlying momentum is strong, with the group genuinely diversified across revenue and clients, and we will continue to execute on our growth plans with structure and discipline. We really thank you for your interest, and thanks for joining us here today. Thank you.