Interview with Dominic McGann, Chairman of Flagship Investments Limited

01/04/2021Author: Flagship Investments Team | About

We welcome the Company Chairman talking to Flagship Investment’s shareholders through this interview.

Further information about Dominic and other FSI Directors can be found here.

Find the full transcript below:

Q: About yourself and your background?

My name is Dominic McGann and I’m the chair of the board of Flagship Investments or FSI but my background, my day job is as a partner of Michael Robertson Lawyers, which is a large commercial law firm in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory.I’m often what is referred to as a front-end lawyer and work to obtain agreements for infrastructure renewables and resources projects whether from traditional owners, landholders or relevant state and local governments. So I’m a front-end lawyer that does a lot of negotiating.

Q: When did you first become aware of FSI?

I have a long association with Flagship’s (FSI), having originally worked with Manny [Pohl] on the float of what was then the Wilson Investment terrain fund limited back in 1998 and happily, I’ve been associated with the entity ever since and actually recently went back to look at one of the very early annual reports

and I can report that if nothing else many hasn’t aged a day.

As is often said nothing’s ever certain but if you look back over the performance of FSI over the years I think it’s fair to say it has a sustained above-market performance and that’s, I think, principally drew to two things the particular methodology around management and real discipline in applying that methodology.

Q: What attracted you to the Company?

So I was always attracted to the approach that Manny and the team have. It’s principle-based and it’s also very disciplined.

Why I’m attracted to it is because it is one of the key elements of our broader economy but it is also it’s very complex and it is it really rewards a strong methodology with discipline but also patience. One of the things that particularly interests me about the industry is the tension between a methodology on the one hand and sentiment on the other and really having the discipline to stay attached to the methodology and not

falling with sentiment. So it’s a complex industry but it’s one that certainly interests me and I gain an appreciation of every day my discussions with Manny and the balance of the board.

Q: What do you aim to bring to the board as Chairman?

Well the board of FSI is three it’s Manny as the Managing Director, Sophie Mitchell and myself. In addition, we have a very talented Company Secretary Scott Barrett and an Alternate Director and Angela Obree. So there’s a lot of talent around the board table at any time and the approach in that the situation as the chair is really to simply allow the talent to realize itself and to adopt a very collaborative approach at the board. it doesn’t take a lot of effort but I should say because each of Manny, Sophie, Scott and now Angela have a very collaborative approach so it’s really about ensuring the environment encourages and allows collaboration and for the talent to be fully realized.

Q: A little about yourself outside of the work environment?

Putting aside the fact that some people accuse me of regarding work as a pastime when I’m not at work there are probably two things I do more than anything. One is reading. I read very broadly and the other is I like to exercise regularly and just at the moment in terms of the book I’m reading it’s a particular book

called the Evolution of Beauty by a professor from Yale University, Richard Prum and what it explores is the distinction between what’s called adaptive evolution as opposed to aesthetic evolution. And aesthetic

evolution gives rise to beauty. Adaptive evolution gives rise to the survival of the species and in a sense, there’s a resonance with FSI because one of the things that FSI does, is not to simply stay on a well-trodden path it’s always willing to look at new stocks provided as I’ve said before it always meets a particular methodology and performs over time.

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