(Reuters) -Australia's Macquarie Group posted a 32% drop in its full-year profit on Friday due to weaker performance across its commodities, global markets and asset management businesses.
A normalisation in commodity prices compared with last year and weakness in mergers and acquisitions activity in Australia at a time of high interest rates and lower asset realisations in green investments impacted Macquarie's bottomline in fiscal 2024.
Its commodities and global markets business, its top profit-generating arm that offers financing and lending services to clients dealing in commodity and financial markets, recorded an annual profit of A$3.21 billion, 47% lower than last year.
The financial conglomerate's profit attributable for the year ended March 31 came in at A$3.52 billion ($2.31 billion), compared with A$5.18 billion a year ago.
That was largely in line with a Visible Alpha consensus of A$3.51 billion, according to UBS.
The company declared a final dividend of A$3.85 per share, down from A$4.50 per share last year.
($1 = 1.5228 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Sameer Manekar and John Biju in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)
