Macquarie boss enjoys big pay hike

AAP

10 May, 2015 05:00 PM2 mins to read

Photo / Thinkstock

Macquarie chief executive Nicholas Moore took home more than A$45,000 ($47,618) a day last year as the investment group posted its best profit result since the global financial crisis.

Moore's pay packet swelled to A$16.5 million for the 12 months to March 31 as he oversaw a 27 per cent jump in Macquarie's full-year profit to A$1.6 billion. He is arguably Australia's highest paid chief executive, though Nine boss David Gyngell made A$19.6 million last financial year thanks to one-off incentive payments linked to the media's group's initial public offering.

Moore's pay is 217 times the average Australian wage of A$76,000, meaning he took home more in two days than most people earned in a year.

But it's a long way from the A$26.75 million he took home in 2008, which itself was a step down from the A$33 million his predecessor Alan Moss made the year before.

In 2009 after the global financial crisis hit, he took home a considerably more modest A$290,000 .

And the hefty pay packets at Macquarie, which earned the moniker "the millionaire's factory" in the 1990s and 2000s, extend well beyond the chief executive. Shemara Wikramanayake, the head of Macquarie Asset Management, made A$16.2 million for the year, while the head of the bank's commodities and financial markets business, Andrew Downe, made A$14.4 million.

Their take-home pay easily trumps those of the chief executives at the big four banks and mining giants Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton.

Macquarie's A$1.6 billion full-year profit is its best result since its record A$1.8 billion profit in 2008.

It was also above the A$1.5 billion analysts had expected and the 10 to 20 per cent profit growth Macquarie flagged in January.

Investors welcomed the result, pushing Macquarie shares up A$3.75, or more than 5 per cent.

That share rally came despite Macquarie flagging only a slight improvement in profit during the 2016 financial year with an improved tax rate offsetting an expected flat performance across its divisions.

Its annuity-style business lifted its net profit contribution 33 per cent for the year, while the contribution from its capital markets-facing division was up 19 per cent.