Macquarie Group Announces New CEO Shemara Wikramanayake
(27 July 2018 - Australia) Macquarie Group CEO and Managing Director Nicholas Moore will retire in November after running the group since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) to be replaced by his long time deputy Shemara Wikramanayake who is the current group head of Macquarie Asset Management.
Ms Wikramanayake will become the second female CEO of a major Australian bank following Gail Kelly’s tenure at St George then Westpac. Mr Moore will step down from the boards of Macquarie Group and Macquarie Bank after delivering the group’s H1 2018 results. In a trading update separately released to the ASX on Thursday ahead of its AGM, Macquarie stated that its operating groups “performed well” during the first quarter of fiscal 2019 ended June 30, and that the operating group contribution during the quarter was up from the previous year. It maintained that it expected fiscal 2019 results to be in line with the previous year’s record profit of $A2.56 billion.
Ms Wikramanayake commenced at Macquarie in 1987 and worked with Mr Moore in Corporate Services before establishing Macquarie Capital. She became head of Macquarie Asset Management in 2008, steering the group through the worst of the GFC when Mr Moore became CEO. Macquarie’s asset management business made A$1.7 billion of Macquarie’s A$2.6 billion total net profit in the year to March 31. In the statement announcing his departure, Mr Moore said he had "worked with Ms Wikramanayake for more than 30 years and I am reassured in deciding to retire later this year that I leave Macquarie in a strong position and safe hands".
Macquarie’s asset management, financial services and corporate finance businesses now account for 70 percent of earnings. Ms Wikramanayake was Macquarie's second-highest paid executive last year, receiving a total pay packet of A$18.9 million for running the bank’s asset management arm. Mr Moore was the highest earner with remuneration totalling A$19.7 million. In a statement yesterday the group’s Chairman Peter Warne pointed to Ms Wikramanayake’s “international track record, vision and strong sense of our unique culture to make this a very successful transition”.
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