Although the Magellan Financial Group Ltd (ASX: MFG) share price got off to a strong start today, it didn't finish the day's trading. Magellan shares last traded at around 2pm this Friday. At the time, they were up 1.77% at $29.36 each. And that's where they will be staying, at least for today.
So what's happened to the Magellan share price?
Well, the company put out an ASX statement just after 2pm confirming that Magellan Financial Group had requested a trading halt. Why?
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Magellan shares placed in trading halt
Here's what Magellan said in the announcement:
The trading halt is being requested pending an announcement to be made by MFG. The announcement relates to the termination of a material contract.
MFG requests that the trading halt lasts until the earlier of the commencement of trading on Monday 20 December 2021 or when the announcement is released to the market.
The fund management group gave no further details but according to the Australian Financial Review, the terminated material contract was expected to be that of St James's Place, a wealth manager listed in the United Kingdon and one of Magellan's larger institutional clients.
The AFR report said analysts estimated the St James's Place mandate was worth about £10 billion ($18.6 billion), or "about 18 per cent of Magellan's total funds under management or 25 per cent of its institutional funds under management".
Under pressure
The trading halt comes at a time where Magellan shares are facing significant pressure. Before today, the Magellan share price had already lost close to 16% over the past month, and almost 44% over the past 6.
And as we examined this morning, it also comes at a time where some of Magellan's largest funds are facing performance scrutiny. That's despite the company continuing to record growing funds under management (FUM).
At the last-traded share price, Magellan has a market capitalisation of $5.45 billion, with a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 20.3, and a trailing dividend yield of 7.2%.
