AFIC boss Ross Barker to step down

Ross Barker will be replaced as CEO of Australia’s biggest listed investment company by Mark Freeman.

AFIC chief executive Ross Barker. Picture: David Geraghty

Ross Barker, the chief executive of the nation’s biggest and oldest listed investment company, Australian Foundation Investment Co, will step down as its boss after 16 years of guidance to its 120,000 shareholders.

AFIC (AFI), whose portfolio of mostly Australian equities is worth nearly $7 billion, will retire as CEO of the investment company on December 31, making way for Mark Freeman, currently chief investment officer at AFIC. He will start on January 1.

Mr Freeman will also replace Mr Barker as CEO of Australian Investment Company Services Limited, which provides investment and administration services to AFIC, and three other listed investment companies in the stable: Djerriwarrh Investments, Mirrabooka Investments and AMCIL.

Mr Barker, who in July attacked the federal government’s planned bank tax as a poor piece of policy, was appointed as AFIC’s CEO in 2001 and is also chairman of the Melbourne Business School.

AFIC’s chairman Terrence Campbell said: “Mark is a natural successor to Ross Barker. He has a profound knowledge and depth of experience with investment markets and has a strong understanding of the company’s direction, policies and processes.”

As CIO of the investment companies business, Mr Freeman is responsible for leading the team managing the portfolios, which have a combined current total of over $8 billion in funds under management.

Prior to becoming CIO of the four investment companies in 2007, Mr Freeman was a partner with Goldman Sachs JBWere, advising the investment companies on their investment and dealing activities.

On Mr Barker’s watch shareholders in AFIC have nearly doubled to over 120,000. In that same period, the portfolio size as measured by total assets has expanded from $2.7 billion to $6.9 billion.

“Ross leaves AFIC and the three other investment companies in a strong position,” said Mr Campbell. “The board and management extend our warm wishes to Ross in his retirement, and thank him for his enduring leadership and significant contribution throughout his distinguished 16-year tenure at AFIC.”

Mr Freeman will be paid a base salary of $850,000 per annum with an annual at-risk incentive representing 50 per cent of that fixed remuneration. A long term incentive plan is set at 20 per cent of the fixed pay.

AFIC recently posted a 7.7 per cent fall in full-year net profit to $245 million.

Mr Barker is a long-time critic of excessive government red tape and interference in the investment and capital markets and in July savaged the bank tax unveiled by the federal government as part of its May budget as an unjustified and poor piece of policy.

“The worry is you get these piecemeal approaches to policy. Well, let’s have a bank tax here; oh, we might have a mining tax if they are successful; oh, we might have a Google tax if we want to tax the internet economy — so just an ad hoc approach. And this isn’t really a tax on banks; it’s a tax on bank shareholders because the government said we don’t want the borrowers or lenders to pay it. So it’s not the banks who pay it ultimately — it’s the shareholders, and ultimately they are the ones to bear the cost of this,’’ Mr Barker told The Australian at the time.

“It took us by surprise, totally, and it’s definitely poor policy ­because it doesn’t make sense to us. If you are going to introduce a new tax it ought to be for the industry, not just five companies in particular,” Mr Barker said.