Macquarie Bank halted trading in its shares yesterday after Australia’s biggest listed investment bank said that it was considering a capital raising in the wake of a year of record profits.

The bank, dubbed The Millionaire Factory because of the huge salaries paid to its key dealmakers, is expected today to unveil full-year profits of about AU$1.4 billion (£590 million).

Macquarie said that it could not give further details of the fundraising due to regulatory contraints, but the bank is expected to replicate last year’s decision to sell A$700 million of stock to fund acquisitions.

Shares in the bank closed up less than 1 per cent at A$89.50 yesterday.

The Australian Securities Exchange said that trading in Macquarie’s shares would be frozen until Thursday, although the bank said that it was unlikely to need beyond 2pm tomorrow to finalise its plans.

If the company does report a profit of nearly A$1.4 billion, as analysts’ polls suggest, Alan Moss, the chief executive, could see his annual pay reach A$30 million, up from A$21.2 million last year. Last year the next layer of management received pay cheques of between A$10 million and A$20 million, which they are expected to top this year.

A good full-year announcement would brighten what has been an otherwise dull new year for Macquarie. Despite announcing deals worth almost A$20 billion since the start of 2007, the bank has slipped to fifth in the ranking of corporate advisers, according to Dealogic, the data suppliers. Macquarie was second in the table in 2006.

A number of the bank’s high-profile deals have fallen apart at the last minute. This month a consortium comprising Macquarie and the private equity firms Texas Pacific Group and Allco Finance Group was forced to allow its A$11.1 billion bid for Qantas to lapse, after failing to secure the acceptance of more than half of the Australian airline’s shareholders by a 7pm deadline. The consortium was criticised for not having made sure of the method of counting acceptances earlier in the negotiations.

Last week Macquarie looked set to miss out on Alinta, after a four-month tussle for the Australian energy company, after Alinta’s board chose a A$8 billion offer from Babcock and Brown and Singapore Power over Macquarie’s rival bid.

Macquarie was dealt a blow in March when Mark Johnson, the bank’s deputy chairman, said that he would retire in order to take advantage of changes to the Australian pensions laws.

The bank is known best in the UK for its £1.5 billion takeover bid for the London Stock Exchange last January. The bank was forced to withdraw after it was unable to raise its offer high enough to please investors.

Macquarie – which last year led a £4.8 billion buyout of Thames Water – has faced criticism in the past over claims that it lacks Chinese walls between its advisory and investment divisions.

Buy the buy

February 2005 Macquarie pulls out of £1.5 billion takeover bid for the London Stock Exchange

June 2006 Macquarie-led consortium pulls out of bidding for Associated British Ports

December Macquarie buys Thames Water for £8 billion

April 2007 Macquarie pays £2 billion for Airwave, a mobile network used by emergency services

April Macquarie subsidiary Arqiva buys National Grid’s phone masts and broadcast business for £2.5 billion

May Fails in bid for Alinta

May Macquarie consortium allows its AU$11.1 billion bid for Qantas to lapse

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