The cult of the UK equity has long been asummed dead as investors internationalise their portfolios, while active management is often assumed to be losing the argument with passive trackers. But there was little evidence of these trends in impressive full-year results from Liontrust Asset Management (LIO).
Strong interest in its actively managed, UK-biased equity strategies drove net inflows of £667m during the year to March, up three-quarters on the preceding period. Together with solid investment performance in buoyant markets, that boosted assets under management (AUM) by almost a quarter to £4.5bn, pushing revenues up 30 per cent and paying for a second interim dividend of 6p (from 2p in 2014).
Chief executive John Ions stresses the restructure of the manager's distribution process, with sales teams now split to better serve three client bases. These are: Liontrust's strategic partners, which include Standard Life, for whom it provides exclusive risk-graded portfolios; its specialist wealth manager and asset manager clients; and finally its intermediary network.
The manager is seeing its initial institutional focus blurred by the growth of its retail offering, which makes up for more than £3bn of AUM. This growth has been spurred by decent performance, with seven out of eight of its actively managed unit trusts in the top quartile of their sectors.
Broker Cenkos expects adjusted pre-tax profits of £13.7m in the year to March 2016, giving adjusted EPS of 24.2p, compared with £12.1m and 20.9p in FY 2015.
| LIONTRUST ASSET MANAGEMENT (LIO) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD PRICE: | 302p | MARKET VALUE: | £137m | |
| TOUCH: | 293-302p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 306p | LOW: 208p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 2.6% | PE RATIO: | 21 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 52p* | NET CASH: | £16.4m | |
| Year to 31 Mar | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 8.9 | -5.1 | -14.7 | nil |
| 2012 | 13.7 | -1.6 | -0.7 | nil |
| 2013 | 20.4 | -3.9 | -11.2 | 1 |
| 2014 | 28.5 | 3.2 | 5.6 | 3 |
| 2015 | 36.8 | 7.3 | 14.6 | 8 |
| % change | +29 | +128 | +161 | +167 |
Ex-div: 24 Jun Payment: 23 Jul *Includes intangible assets of £5m, or 11p a share | ||||
