Macquarie Asset Management group head moving to NYC

Macquarie Asset Management is reinforcing its presence in the U.S. with a very important move: By the end of the year, the leader of the Australian money manager will relocate to New York.

"It's important I be there," Ben Way, group head, said in an exclusive interview. "That's our biggest business in terms of people and AUM, and also I think our biggest opportunity. New York is the capital of asset management globally, so it will be great to be there" and there's a "lot more to do there," Mr. Way said.

As of June 30, Macquarie AM had A$773.9 billion ($533 billion) in assets under management, with public markets accounting for about two-thirds of AUM.

In moving to New York, he's leading from the front. "I can't be asking my team to be doing things I don't do myself," he said. Plus, his two daughters are at college on the West Coast of the U.S. — so he'll now be "close enough, but not too close" from their point of view, he joked.

While he'll be at arm's length for his kids, he'll be at the heart of Macquarie AM's growing team and business — one that has expanded over recent years with major acquisitions in New York in particular. At the same time, he's positioning the firm for opportunities in infrastructure secondaries, a growing private credit franchise and all the while keeping a very close eye on sustainability — both in terms of the opportunities it presents and the increased importance of doing the right thing.

His move comes after more than 20 years in Asia, with the last decade in Hong Kong and time spent in Beijing, Seoul and Taipei.

Mr. Way was Asia CEO for seven years before becoming head of the money management division in April 2021, and the move to New York will be a big change — but one that will support Macquarie's growing business in the Americas.

He will be stationed at Macquarie's new U.S. office at 660 Fifth Ave. — a move from offices at the Avenue of the Americas Plaza that will accommodate the firm's growing team. Macquarie AM has more than 900 staff in the Americas and has made a number of strategic acquisitions over recent years of firms headquartered in the U.S., including equity and fixed-income manager Waddell & Reed Financial Inc. and investment advisory firm Central Park Group LLC.

And while Mr. Way is not ruling out further acquisitions, Macquarie AM executives have plenty to be getting on with in terms of organic growth and the development of new offerings — something the firm's latest high-profile hire is tasked with.

Peter Glaser joined in London as Macquarie's first global head of the private credit and asset finance team from Alcentra, where he was head of European direct lending. Earlier this year, Alcentra's parent company, Bank of New York Mellon, announced the sale of the $36 billion credit specialist to Franklin Templeton.

Today, Macquarie Asset Management has $11.4 billion in private credit assets under management, spanning infrastructure, real estate and structured credit, and the firm also invests in movable transportation assets through its $1.7 billion asset finance business.

Mr. Glaser's appointment "will help us to turbocharge the opportunity we see," Mr. Way said, citing data provider Preqin's analysis showing the global private debt market is set to hit $2.69 trillion in assets under management by 2026.

The wider private markets business also includes infrastructure, renewables, agriculture and real estate.

"We continue to see really good support for all of our different products in terms of those strategies," Mr. Way said, with record-size vintages for some strategies. In May, the firm closed the Macquarie Asia-Pacific Infrastructure Fund 3 at more than $4.2 billion — exceeding the $3 billion target. The second fund in the series closed in 2018 at $3.3 billion.

"We're raising bigger funds more quickly than ever before (and) deploying them incredibly quickly, which allows us to go back to the market quicker than we did (before). It's a good example of the maturing and diversification of clients around the world who have an interest in these private markets asset classes, and a good example of how infrastructure has matured," with the scale of opportunities increasing, bigger transactions and more sectors in which to invest, he said.

Macquarie is looking to the infrastructure secondaries market in particular as an area of growth. The firm expects the infrastructure secondaries market to reach $67 billion by 2025 — more than three times its $19 billion size today.

"Just as private equity got mature enough and there was enough actual scale, managers and vintages to create a secondaries market about eight to 10 years ago, now we see the same sort of conditions for infrastructure secondaries," Mr. Way said. "That creates, we think, a new opportunity to be able to diversify our product suite in a sector we know well and can really add value for clients."

As such, the firm has been building out its business. Over the past year it has made a number of hires, including the appointment of Irina Luckey as managing director in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Charles Spiller and Bing Wong as senior adviser and senior vice president, respectively, both in New York. And the secondaries team has executed more than $500 million of transactions over the same period.

The private credit opportunity is particularly relevant now "in the sorts of markets we find ourselves in today," Mr. Way said.

"In an era when trust is paramount, investors are putting a premium on partnership. It is incumbent on us to continue to do a great job on our existing strategies, but we have to consider what else we can do well, to provide our clients with more options," Mr. Way said.

The firm has made a number of acquisitions over recent years.

In March, Macquarie completed its acquisition of Central Park Group, which specializes in institutional-quality alternatives strategies targeted at high-net-worth and small institutional investors. The firm had more than $3.5 billion in AUM as of Dec. 31.

In July 2021, Macquarie AM agreed to acquire AMP Capital's A$60 billion global equities and fixed-income business. That followed the April 2021 acquisition of Waddell & Reed in a $1.7 billion deal. Waddell & Reed, based in Overland Park, Kan., added about $76 billion in AUM and made Macquarie a top-20 actively managed, long-term open-end U.S. mutual fund manager by AUM, the firm said at the time. Coinciding with the purchase, Macquarie sold Waddell & Reed's wealth management platform to LPL Financial Holdings Inc., entering into a long-term partnership with Macquarie becoming a top-tier strategic asset management partner to the retail investment advisory firm.

Those deals have "given us more complementary investment strategies, deepened client relationships, more scale (and) allowed us to be more 'around the world' for clients," Mr. Way said.

Another major focus for Macquarie is that of sustainability and decarbonization — another area where the firm has added expertise through acquisition. In February, it announced it was taking a stake in sustainability-focused real estate developer EDGE, which has operations in the Netherlands, Germany and the U.K., as well as joint ventures in the U.S.

Sustainability is high on the agenda in general. In December 2020, the firm committed to being net-zero by 2040, and is set to have net-zero-aligned business plans in place for all its portfolio companies by the end of this year.

Part of its efforts included bringing the Green Investment Group Ltd. — which was part of parent firm Macquarie Group's principal investment and advisory business — into the asset management unit in April, which Mr. Way described as a move to "double down on the green and energy transition more broadly."

The Green Investment Group was formed when Macquarie acquired the U.K. Green Investment Bank PLC in 2017, which was combined with Macquarie Capital's renewables team. The GIB, launched by the U.K. government in 2012, was a publicly funded institution that aimed to channel private capital into green energy.

Macquarie's GIG has arranged or committed more than £25 billion ($28.5 billion) in assets and most recently launched an electric vehicle infrastructure business for operators of electric commercial vehicles — Fleete.

With the opportunity in core renewables so large, with trillions of dollars in investment needed every year for the global community to get where it needs to in terms of reaching net-zero, it's a "great opportunity to scale up," Mr. Way said. Moving the unit under the money management business brought skill sets and expertise together with capital for investment, he added.

Accelerating the capital available for the energy transition is an "opportunity set everyone is talking about," Mr. Way added. Macquarie AM has 185 portfolio companies, and "we need to first of all make sure we get to net-zero by 2040. That's the commitment we've given to our investors and stakeholders around the world. It's not just about creating new funds to do it, but also about getting it right in our existing funds."

Part of the drive is to protect value for clients, he said. The best companies in five years or a decade will be those with "very good financial performance and fundamentals, but also those that have got sustainability right: No one is going to get regulatory approval and support, attract debt from banks, attract clients and people to work at their firms if they're not doing the right things. Those who get it right will be better businesses," and taking sustainability seriously "allows you to be an investor of purpose. We want to invest to make sure we have a positive impact for everyone: for clients, but we also see the ability from a social license perspective to have more impact in the community," Mr. Way said.

There will be challenging times along the way, "but … the journey to net-zero, to sustainability, was never going to be linear. There will be moments we are challenged … but that doesn't mean the overall conviction around the thematic doesn't hold true," Mr. Way said.

And just as Mr. Way is leading from the front by relocating to New York, he's conscious that Macquarie AM, as a big infrastructure player, needs to be a leader in terms of doing the "right thing" for the world in terms of sustainability.

"We know infrastructure is one of the biggest emitters. If someone like us doesn't take it seriously and do it, then who will?" he said.