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Hamish Douglass, the man once branded a rock star of investing who breathed the positive fumes of being hailed as Australia\u2019s answer to Warren Buffett, has opened up about his sexuality, his mental health and life after the rumour mill.<\/p>\n
His emotional decline, his personal challenges and the shrinking of the business he co-founded, Magellan Financial Group, makes for tough listening.<\/p>\n
![\"Hamish](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/a9c2c0225382821cc07dd6165c28b639e4023823.jpeg\")
Hamish Douglass has opened up in an interview with Rampart.Janie Barrett<\/p>\n
It has taken Douglass four years to build the resilience to be able to publicly own his sexual status as a gay man, his mental health crisis, and discuss how he has come through to the other side.<\/p>\n
In an interview with Joe Aston\u2019s Rampart, Douglass unpacks the coalescence of factors including the breakdown of his marriage, the toxic rumours about his sexuality and Magellan\u2019s decline that led him to a place so dark that he at times flirted with ending his life. Aston, himself, was among the first to write about rumours of Douglass\u2019 marriage failure.<\/p>\n
The tale of Douglass\u2019 professional fortunes is one of a man who flew too close to the sun.<\/p>\n
He leant on his rock-star investment manager status to promote Magellan, which attracted billions of investment dollars into its products in a relatively short period of time.<\/p>\n
But it was the fund manager\u2019s underperformance in the aftermath of COVID that resulted in investors abandoning Magellan<\/a>.<\/p>\n As Douglass\u2019 professional and personal walls were closing in on him, he professed to become fearful of waking up in the morning, and the daily barrage of press was toxic.<\/p>\n It had been wrong-footed and over-optimistic about China, and saw its returns penalised after that country\u2019s regulatory crackdown.<\/p>\n Douglass\u2019 halo had already lost its gloss before news of his marriage breakdown or the departure of Magellan\u2019s chief executive, Brett Cairns, became issues.<\/p>\n The company was already under pressure.<\/p>\n Because of Douglass\u2019 deliberately elevated profile as the company\u2019s key man, he became the focus of Magellan\u2019s problems. By 2022 he had a target on his back.<\/p>\n In Magellan\u2019s backing of a breakaway new investment bank, Barrenjoey, which had headhunted many financial operatives from competitors, Douglass made plenty of enemies.<\/p>\n There were many Magellan shareholders understandably dismayed by their returns but also plenty of competitors with a vested financial interest in highlighting the company\u2019s failures.<\/p>\n There were people betting Magellan\u2019s shares would continue to fall. It was a lucrative trade \u2013 in the space of a year from mid-2021 to mid-2022 the stock fell around 70 per cent.<\/p>\n Related Article When the news broke of Douglass\u2019 marriage breakdown it prompted a feasting frenzy about his sexuality \u2013 generating inaccurate rumours around financial industry drinking holes about alleged trysts with young Asian men and even a supposed relationship with one of his children\u2019s friends.<\/p>\n With it also came rumours that Cairns had resigned because of moral disgust.<\/p>\n \u201cNeither of these facts are true at all. It was being implied that I was a kind of paedophile having a relationship. And then it got into different stories, there were Asian boys involved \u2026 these rumours were spreading all over the place.\u201d<\/p>\n Douglass said he was \u201cgobsmacked\u201d by these falsehoods.<\/p>\n So extreme was the negative chatter that Douglass says had a Jeffrey Epstein vibe \u2013 some of which, he confesses, still echoes around Sydney four years later.<\/p>\n In 2022, the board of Magellan announced Douglass was to take indefinite medical leave, after his mental health had reached a point where he was on the verge of suicide.<\/p>\n \u201cHad my wife not picked me up at that moment, I don\u2019t think I would be here today,\u201d he said in the Rampart podcast.<\/p>\n As Douglass\u2019 professional and personal walls were closing in on him, he professed to becoming fearful of waking up in the morning, and the daily barrage of press was toxic.<\/p>\n He had suffered an extreme mental breakdown from which it has taken years to recover.<\/p>\n Related Article![\"Hamish](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/b5767f7db9bdfb5c38e555dde2062b407b1482c5.jpeg\")
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