It's news that Magellan Financial Group Ltd (ASX: MFG) shareholders need like a poke in the eye with a blunt stick: Magellan shares are falling once again. Although the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) is having a corker today, rising by 1.23% at the time of writing, Magellan shares are tanking this Monday. The fund manager has shed another painful 8.77% so far today and is now at $11.86 a share.
So what on earth could be dragging Magellan back down by so much? Especially while the broader market, including other ASX 200 financial shares, is having such a cracking day…
Well, it's likely to be the result of two developments that came out this morning.
Image source: Getty Images
Magellan share price rocked by more bad news
The first was the news that Magellan co-founder and former chief investment officer Hamish Douglass has been offloading a significant quantity of his shares in Magellan.
As my Fool colleague James covered this morning, Douglass sold roughly 760,000 shares over June. That would be worth approximately $9.4 million. This comes after Douglass had previously stated that "we've never sold a single share in Magellan".
This heavy selling from a Magellan co-founder is hardly confidence-inspiring stuff for investors. Particularly as they've already had to watch Magellan shares lose more than 78% of their value over the past 12 months.
But that isn't the only negative piece of news out today.
According to reporting in the Australian Financial Review today, Magellan's head of sales and distribution Frank Casarotti is to resign from his position. Casarotti has been at Magellan since 2007.
Although he will only leave his post in December 2023, it's still a blow for the company. The fund manager has already had to deal with the departure of Douglass, as well as former CEO Brett Cairns last year.
So it's likely a combination of these two developments that is causing a loss of confidence in Magellan shares today and explains the steep share price drop we are seeing. It's not exactly how shareholders might want to start FY2023, but here we are.
At the current Magellan share price, this ASX 200 fund manager has a market capitalisation of $2.22 billion, with a trailing dividend yield of 18.92%.
