Shares in Macquarie, Australia’s biggest securities firm, jumped 12%, the most in more than four months, to $52.30 on Wednesday after its chief executive said the group had avoided the troubled assets that caused almost $470bn of losses and writedowns worldwide, reports Bloomberg. Nicholas Moore, who took over from Allan Moss as CEO in May, said Macquarie had a “solid” first quarter in difficult conditions. While stressing that Macquarie may be unable to repeat last year’s record A$1.8bn ($1.75bn) profit, Moore also said Macquarie has no “problem” investments and pledged to stick to a strategy of buying assets and bundling them into publicly traded funds. The company reported that Q1 profit fell from a year earlier, without providing figures.
