2/27/21 - Weekend Listening from Intercontinental Exchange
Our guest this week: Hamish Douglass, Chairman of Magellan Financial Group
For the first time since before Thanksgiving, my daughter attended in-person class at her New York City middle school yesterday. The joy of sending her out the door into the world, backpack on shoulder and mask over mouth, was a form of thanksgiving in itself.
The early morning quiet of the apartment gave me a few minutes to read the actual print edition of the Wall Street Journal, also rarity in Covid times. In the real estate section, Katie McLaughlin served up a piece on the economics of paying off a home loan, referencing data from ICE Mortgage Technology.
Preparing to speak this week with Hamish Douglass, Chairman of Magellan Financial Group, I spent some time reading up on his lunches at McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) which, along with ICE, is part of his portfolio of A$100 billion AUM. I asked Hamish: does the debut of the McPlant later in 2021 equate with ICE’s move into mortgage technology as part of seeing the future?
“I’m probably more optimistic about ICE’s step into the mortgage market. We’re incredibly optimistic if we take a 10 year view on that,” he told me, noting his bet on MCD is based more on its brand and distribution muscle. “What ICE is doing to digitalize the mortgage market in the United States, and then create a marketplace for an exchange and create a data business off of that, is an enormous opportunity.”
Our conversation with Hamish spanned the world -- from video streaming platforms to electricity grids to Covid vaccines to microchips -- and is well worth a listen.
The view from Down Under:
On Top from Down Under: Magellan Financial Group Chairman Hamish Douglass The closest neighboring country to Australia is Papua New Guinea, almost 1,500 miles away. Sometimes, that detached, unemotional remove can help an investor make the best bets. That’s a benefit that Hamish Douglass says helps deliver the kind of investment results Magellan Financial Group has become known for. Hamish takes us on a tour of the investing world, from the electrical grid in Texas to the quick service restaurants in China to the streaming services supplanting our screen time.
If you’re on a smart phone, all of our Inside the ICE House podcast episodes are available wherever you get your podcasts, including the Apple iPhone Podcast app, Spotify, Stitcher, and other audio platforms. Feel free to reach out to me with any feedback about our show, or suggest any guests for future episodes.