Macquarie Group, Australia’s biggest investment bank, agreed to sever ties with an affiliate that owns airports from Sydney to Brussels as it unwinds a business model that helped drive 16 years of rising profits.

Macquarie Group will forego management and performance fees from Macquarie Airports Ltd. in return for A$345 million ($281m of stock in the airport manager, according to a statement. The investment bank’s stake in Macquarie Airports will rise to 27.3% from about 21%.

Macquarie Group Chief Executive Officer Nicholas Moore is distancing the company from its publicly traded funds after an unbroken streak of earnings gains ended last year as it wrote down the value of the so-called 'satellite' funds it spawned.

bloomberg.com