Good morning,

Perpetual‘s Rob Adams, Pinnacle‘s Ian Macoun and about 140 suits working in funds management showed up at Sydney’s The Royal Exchange last week to bid farewell to Magellan Financial Group’s long-standing rainmaker Frank Casarotti.

Casarotti, who announced his intention to retire in July 2022, is finally ready to check out before Christmas. He’s the guy who shovelled nearly $100 billion of FUM into Magellan’s funds during the firm’s heyday, while Hamish Douglass wooed investors and Brett Cairns kept shareholders happy.

Street Talk is told Douglass stayed away from the gathering, as did ex-chairman Hamish McLennan, who was recently ousted from Rugby Australia’s board. But Cairns, who resigned as Magellan’s CEO two Christmases ago, showed up, as did executive chairman Andrew Formica and Magellan’s former spin doctor Lucy Briggs.

The gathering pulled in guests from across the divide. Rival fund manager Geoff Wilson is understood to have attended and Platinum Asset Management‘s Doug Isles was spotted in the room. Wavestone Capital’s Catherine Allfrey also went.

Casarotti, at one point, held out a pair of Bermuda shorts and claimed he was done with financial services -- and with wearing long pants. No board seats and no consulting roles, just a lot of time under the sun in Noosa and Italy.

While it was a happy gathering, it would also have been a bittersweet departure. At $34 billion FUM and long-standing heads gone, Magellan is a shadow of its former self. Others in the room have challenges of their own: Platinum is down 30 per cent in 12 months, while Perpetual is under pressure to prove the worth of its acquisition of Pendal Group.

Lastly, new CEOs are wanted at Magellan, Platinum and eventually, Pinnacle. And with Casarotti counting himself out of future roles, that’s one less candidate for every fund manager in Australia.

Happy reading,

• EastLink‘s suitors submitted their first-round bids to sell-side adviser RBC on Monday but Transurban was missing in action.
• An investment memorandum for swimwear brand Tigerlily is circulating among interested buyers.
• Partners Group is bringing in the big guns as the battle for Fresenius’s Cura Day Hospitals heats up.
• Electric vehicle outfit GoZero is close to securing a $100 million asset finance facility.
• Cat Rock dumps Cettire stock, Barrenjoey nabs the $45 million trade.

Former PM Paul Keating is urging FIRB to knock back Brookfield’s takeover bid for Origin Energy branding it a “get-rich-quick” scheme, writes Ben Potter.

Deloitte reckons swimwear brand Tigerlily can double revenue to $44 million, EBITDA to $3 million and EBITDA margins to 7 per cent by financial year 2027 via an aggressive three-year growth strategy.

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