Liontrust Asset Management (LIO) continued to weather volatile equity markets well during the first half of the year. The UK-biased manager of actively managed strategies recorded net inflows of £92m, only slightly down from the £110m gained during the same time the previous year. Unsurprisingly, £77m of this was from institutional mandates and just £4m attributable to UK retail investors. However, the group did gain £272m in retail funds via its acquisition of Argonaut's European income business, which completed in July.
A £5.4m increase in administration expenses dented pre-tax profit, primarily relating to fund manager profit share and incentivisation schemes. After stripping out one-offs, adjusted pre-tax profits were up 16 per cent to £6.8m. Investment returns remained strong at £530m, more than two-thirds of which were made on its UK retail funds.
In all, this took total assets under management to £5.7bn, up from £4.4bn at the same time in the previous year. Almost half of the group's actively managed unit trust funds ranked in the first quartile in their respective peer groups during the past year.
Analysts at Numis expect adjusted pre-tax profit of £14.7m and EPS of 25.5p during the 12 months to March 2017, compared with £14.5m and 25.5p for the previous year.
LIONTRUST ASSET MANAGEMENT (LIO) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD PRICE: | 330p | MARKET VALUE: | £150m | |
| TOUCH: | 320-330p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 353p | LOW: 235p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 3.9% | PE RATIO: | 26 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 49p* | NET CASH: | £18m | |
| Half-yearto 30 Sep | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 18.7 | 4.2 | 7.6 | 3 |
| 2016 | 22.0 | 2.2 | 3.9 | 4 |
| % change | +18 | -47 | -49 | +33 |
Ex-div: 24 Nov Payment: 22 Dec *Includes intangible assets of £5.3m, or 12p a share | ||||
