30th Mar 2015 09:59
LONDON (Alliance News) - AIM-listed fund manager Miton Group PLC on Monday said its assets under management fell in 2014 on the back of some poor fund performance and the retirement of a key manager, helping push the company to a pretax loss, although it was confident of growing assets under management going forward.
Miton said its pretax loss for the year was GBP5.5 million, compared with a GBP0.7 million profit in 2013. The loss was attributable to a writedown taken by the company on the sale of Miton Capital Partners Ltd.
Its assets under management fell to GBP2.05 billion at the year-end, down from GBP3.1 billion a year earlier. The fall was down to the sale of its Liverpool business and due to the poor performance of multi-asset funds in the first half. It also saw a further GBP510 million of outflows due to the retirement of fund manager Bill Mott, which resulted in the loss of a segregated mandate and two large redemptions from the Miton Income Fund.
Despite the loss, the company has recommended an increase in its final dividend to 0.6 pence per share, up 11% from the 0.54 pence paid a year earlier.
"Although 2014 was a difficult year, constraints to our growth have been addressed. Miton now has a scalable platform, an enhanced brand profile and we are unified in a single office. Added to our range of highly marketable funds, we are confident this will enable us to grow AUM considerably," said Miton Chairman Ian Dighé.
In a separate statement on Monday, Miton also announced plans to raise GBP100 million for the Miton UK MicroCap Trust PLC vehicle through a main market listing.
The company will invest in a portfolio of UK-based microcap companies, comprising companies with a market capitalisation of GBP150 million or less at the time of investment.
Miton shares were up 5.4% to 22.00 pence on Monday.
By Sam Unsted; [email protected]; @SamUAtAlliance
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