It has been a bad year for asset manager Liontrust. Not only has it been hit by one of the deepest falls in the stock market history but, in January, it lost its two star fund managers - Jeremy Lang and William Pattisson.
Their roles have since been filled internally and Liontrust has also acquired a new fixed income team from Ilex Asset Management. That should help the group to continue with its strategy of broadening the spread of assets under management away from equities. In the meantime, though, and despite good performances by several of the individual funds, total funds under management slumped 60 per cent in the period to £1.9bn - earlier this month that had fallen further still, to £1.2bn. During the period, outflows of £2.1bn far exceeded inflows of £738m, and the fall in the market meant a further £1.4bn hit. Inevitably, then, profits are down sharply and the dividend has been cut. Still, management thinks that £1.2bn is a stable base from which to grow the business and is launching a number of new funds - in the absolute return and fixed income sectors - and these are attracting investors.
Altium Securities has cut its pre-tax profit estimate for 2010 from £4.1m to £2.5m, with its EPS estimate slashed from 9.6p to 5.9p.
| ORD PRICE: | 101p | MARKET VALUE: | £34.0m | |
| TOUCH: | 99-102 | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 293p | LOW: 79p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 7.4% | PE RATIO: | 4 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 68p | NET CASH: | £21.7m | |
| Year to 31 Mar | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | 10.7 | 22.8 | 10.8 |
| 2006 | 10.5 | 22.7 | 11.3 |
| 2007 | 11.8 | 26.0 | 12.0* |
| 2008 | 16.5 | 37.0 | 12.5† |
| 2009 | 12.4 | 28.3 | 7.50 |
| % change | -25 | -24 | -40 |
Ex-div: 24 Jun Payment: 22 Jul *Excludes a 2.9p special dividend †Excluded a 15.5p special dividend | |||
