“The 2026 financial year has been very disappointing for Barramundi,” Oliver said, noting it was “the worst performance by the company in its 20-year history”.
Marlin’s result was also poor, so poor in fact, the company emphasised this fact through repetition.
“Marlin has not performed well during the 2026 financial year,” Oliver said twice in a single paragraph in a note to shareholders.
Oliver noted this performance had also followed a poor 2025 and came despite a wider rally in equities. “Regrettably, for the second consecutive year, the actively managed Marlin portfolio underperformed the market indices,” she said.
Total shareholder returns were -7.6% – falling well short of the company’s benchmark index that rose almost 31% in the same period.
Oliver said: “The board is disappointed with the performance and is working closely with the manager to be assured that the portfolio is positioned to remedy this situation in the future.”
Barramundi’s report noted that the fund’s current management agreement with Fisher, which was renewed in 2021 for a five-year term to October 25 2026, is now under review.
“At the time of writing this directors’ overview, the Barramundi Board is engaged in a comprehensive review of the performance of the manager of its obligations under the management agreement.
“The outcome from that review will not be known until after the issuance of this annual report.”
New Zealand-focused Kingfish, with an earlier reporting date of March, had earlier posted a $13.6m loss due to what its then chair Andy Coupe described as a “challenging period for the New Zealand sharemarket”.
Dividend deliveries salvaged the position for Kingfish shareholders, with a total shareholder return of 1.3% – although still negative in real terms.
Matt Nippert is an Auckland-based investigations reporter covering white-collar and transnational crimes and the intersection of politics and business. He has won more than a dozen awards for his journalism – including twice being named Reporter of the Year – and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting for business newspapers and national magazines.
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