Magellan chair still confident

STOCK picker Hamish Douglass has sought to reassure shareholders smarting from Magellan’s underwhelming performance and share price plunge over the past year, telling investors he is confident in the fund manager’s strategy and that it hasn’t lost its nerve on China.

Speaking at Magellan’s annual meeting on Thursday, the billionaire fund manager acknowledged the uncertainty the poor performance had generated for shareholders as he admitted China’s crackdown on technology and regulation had hit hard.

“The crackdown in China after Jack Ma made those comments has been painful for us; 30 per cent of why we underperformed the market was because of those two investments (Tencent and Alibaba),”

he said.

“We’re out of Tencent, we still hold Alibaba, we still hold LVMH and we still hold Starbucks. So we haven’t lost our nerve on China, and we don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

Mr Douglass, who is chairman and chief investment officer, also pointed to “significant opportunities” for growth in the business outside of the core global equities franchise.