29th Jul 2015 08:01
LONDON (Alliance News) - Man Group PLC Wednesday reported stronger first-half profit after generating higher performance fees, and said it remains cautious about the remaining months of the year due to "very challenging" financial markets.
The alternative investment manager, which has been trying to reduce its reliance on quantitative investment management business AHL through acquisition, said it made a USD163 million pretax profit in the six months to the end of June, compared with USD106 million in the corresponding period the prior year, as performance fees doubled to USD200 million.
Funds under management increased by 8% to USD78.8 billion inside the first half, as acquisitions and investment performance added a combined USD9.90 billion to more than offset USD2.6 billion of net outflows and USD1.4 billion from unfavourable currency movements.
Man Group increased its interim dividend to 5.4 cents per share from 4.0 cents per share, and said it has surplus regulatory capital of about USD425 million after adjusting for paying the dividend and profit in the first half. Dividend payments will remain the main way of returning capital to shareholders, but Man Group said it will continue to repurchase shares on the market when "advantageous" to do so.
"While the first quarter of the year saw a more stable environment in financial markets which benefited all of our strategies and in particular AHL's momentum strategies, the second quarter was characterised by renewed volatility. As a result AHL's momentum strategies gave back the gains they had made in the first quarter however GLG, Numeric and FRM's strategies generated good risk adjusted returns adding to their strong start to the year," Chief Executive Manny Roman said in a statement.
Man Group shares were up 4.9% at 158.43 pence on Wednesday morning in London.
By Samuel Agini; [email protected]; @samuelagini
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