(Bloomberg) -- Shemara Wikramanayake will inherit an investment bank firing on all cylinders when she takes charge of Macquarie Group Ltd. next month.
The Sydney-based company on Friday forecast full-year profit will rise 10 percent, largely due to buoyant income from its commodities and capital-markets businesses. The shares jumped 3.9 percent, capping their biggest weekly gain since May 2016.
Click here for details of Macquarie's first-half results and outlook
Wikramanayake, who succeeds Nicholas Moore on Dec. 1, said in an interview on Friday she saw opportunities across the group, from asset management to capital markets.
“My top priority is to ensure we have a smooth transition when Nicholas goes and I step into that role; that nobody really skips a beat or notices the difference,” she said. “For each of our businesses we see opportunities to drive things.”
Wikramanayake, who previously headed the asset-management division and turned it into the group's most profitable and fastest-growing division, said she'll visit investors in Australia, North America and Europe in coming weeks.
Read more: Macquarie joins rare bank club with first woman CEO
Macquarie, which said it has halted its share buyback program, had a capital surplus of A$3.4 billion ($2.5 billion) as of Sept. 30.
To contact the reporters on this story: Angus Whitley in Sydney at awhitley1@bloomberg.net;Katrina Nicholas in Singapore at knicholas2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Edward Johnson at ejohnson28@bloomberg.net, Peter Vercoe
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