Clime gains ground on culture, business model reset

Not done with pulling Clime Investment Management out of the red, managing director Michael Baragwanath's bold plans to turn the ship around entail a product and culture overhaul, and even giving away his short-term incentives (STI) to staff.

- Karren Vergara

After a tumultuous few years marked by losses and leadership instability, the ASX-listed wealth group is well on its way to a recovery, having turned in NPAT of $510,676 in the 2025 financial year.

But Baragwanath hasn't scratched the surface. He told Financial Standard that his vision is to turn Clime "into an interesting, fast, growing and amazing business."

Initially hired as a consultant in December 2023, Baragwanath was named acting managing director after Annick Donat stepped down from her role as chief executive in July 2024.

Baragwanath began with the sale of Madison Financial Group to Infocus.

"That was because there were big claims risks from the licence. There would be costs on the licence, it never made money when it was bought out of receivership, so you had this declining practice," he said.

Once in the driver's seat, he immediately noticed Madison took up a lot of effort, consuming the leadership's time, skillsets and cash.

"It would make the business about $2 million and cost the business about $4 million. We had two options: One, was raise more money and fix it. The other was to sell it," he said.

In ditching the former option, Baragwanath saw that Madison would not be turned around in due time.

But if he was successful in doing so, Madison would have been "a very low margin, very high risk, very scaled operation licensee."

The group has managed to turn around consecutive losses of $3.8 million and $1.9 million in FY24 and FY23 respectively.

It recently grew funds under management, advice and mandates to $1.7 billion, offering individually managed accounts, managed funds and separately managed accounts.

What Baragwanath is also prioritising is the rationalisation of products and expansion into areas where Clime can deliver value.