(UTV|COLOMBO) – Shemara Wikramanayake will succeed Nicholas Moore as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Macquarie Group Ltd., catapulting the low-profile company veteran into the ranks of Australia’s most powerful businesswomen.
Moore, who has led Macquarie for a decade, will retire Nov. 30, the Sydney-based company said in a statement Thursday. The 56-year-old Wikramanayake, who joined Macquarie in 1987 and currently heads its asset management arm, becomes the group’s first female CEO.
Wikramanayake will inherit a company that’s transformed itself under Moore’s stewardship from an Australian investment bank into the world’s largest infrastructure asset manager, which now earns more than two-thirds of its income overseas. Its asset management, financial services and corporate finance businesses now account for 70 percent of earnings. Macquarie’s share price has more than doubled under Moore’s tenure.
In a brief trading update released Thursday, Macquarie said its first-quarter performance was up compared with a year earlier, though down from a strong fourth quarter, and it continues to expect full-year earnings to be in line with last year.
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