Macquarie Group Limited (MQG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Macquarie Group has announced a net profit after tax of $1.655 billion for the half year ended 30 September 2025, up 3% on last year. The group declared an interim ordinary dividend of $2.80 per share.

Shemara, Macquarie has delivered a strong performance across the group. How would you characterize the overall results?

Well, you're right, Laura. We had a result as you saw $1.655 billion for this first half, which was up 3%. I think what it reflects is underlying growth of franchise across all of our operating groups.

And for Macquarie Asset Management, the big news was really the sale of Aligned Data Centers in the U.S. How did that impact the result? And what else contributed?

Well, the first half result was up 43% on the prior comparable period. And yes, we did have good performance fees. MAF2, which is our Australian and Asian funds delivered good performance fees. Aligned contributed through recognition of the performance fees on the co-investors. But we also had good growth in the underlying business. So we had $11 billion of new capital raised and also good investment going on of $12 billion in assets like Diamond Infrastructure Solutions, Vocus. So across all our private markets areas, real assets, real estate, credit, we had good growth.

So there's been sustained growth across the banking and financial services, mortgage and deposit book. How has that driven their results?

Another strong result from BFS. It was up 22% on the prior comparable period. And as you say, the mortgage book, we continue to grow. It's now sitting at $160 billion. It's grown at more than 3x system. And so we're 6.5% of market now there. So that's very good. And our deposits are at 6.1% of market, now sitting at $190 billion. So that is driving ongoing good growth for BFS, which has managed to basically double its earnings since FY '21 with this ongoing approach of a digital-led customer experience-focused banking offering that is continuing to grow very consistently and steadily.

So how would you describe the first half of the year for Commodities and Global Markets?

Commodities and Global Markets, interestingly, our operating income line, which is equivalent to our revenue line was consistent with the prior period. But what we did have is that the mix has changed because we had a more subdued period for commodities. So Financial Markets and Asset Finance grew revenues nicely and became more than 50% of the contribution this year. Despite that top line consistency, we did have increase in operating expenditure with investment in our operating platform, including to comply with regulatory requirements and some transaction costs. So that brought the CGM result down compared to the prior comparable period.

And finally, for Macquarie Capital, it seems like market conditions have been more supportive. How did that play into their results?

The result was up 92% for this half versus the prior comparable period. And yes, we did get contribution from a good result in our Advisory and Capital Market Solutions business, where particularly in the Americas and in Australia, we had some good transaction realizations and fees. But the private credit book also contributed well. It's up $3.9 billion, and we also had some repayments contributing in this half.

Looking ahead to the second half, what's the outlook for Macquarie's businesses?

I think overall, we have maintained our outlook as we guided at the beginning of this year on an overall basis. And I think for the medium term, we feel that we are well positioned with our diversified platform and specialized franchise capabilities to continue to deliver good returns.

Thanks so much for joining us, Shemara.

Thanks.