Man (EMG) may have put its troubles behind it. The hedge fund manager gained net inflows of $8.2bn (£6.2bn) during the six months to the end of June, a big improvement on the $1bn it recorded the last year's first half. What’s more, the group enjoyed positive market movements of $3.8bn, compared with a negative $2.2bn in 2016. Crucially, this meant both net management and performance fees recovered, the latter of which more than doubled.
Notably, demand for subsidiary GLG’s funds partially recovered. GLG’s long-only strategies gained $3.5bn in net inflows, although its alternatives suffered $0.9bn in net losses. Quant strategies – which trade using algorithms rather than manager discretion – continued to be popular. The AHL/Numeric quant alternatives and long-only funds gained $1.3bn and $1bn in net new business respectively.
However, the continued shift in assets under management towards lower-margin strategies, including alternative beta and some institutional mandate wins for fund-of-funds strategies, meant the fund manager’s net margin declined further to 79 basis points, from 89 basis points at the end of December.
Analysts at Numis expect adjusted pre-tax profit of $299m during the 12 months to the end of December 2017, giving EPS of 15.2¢ (from $205m and 10.4¢ in 2016).
*2 August 2017: The original version of this article referred to these inflows as being AHL inflows. This has been corrected.
| MAN (EMG) | ||||
| ORD PRICE: | 167.3p | MARKET VALUE: | £2.77bn | |
| TOUCH: | 167.2-167.4p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 171p | LOW: 108p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 4.4% | PE RATIO: | na | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 102¢* | NET CASH: | $121m | |
| Half-year to 30 Jun | Turnover ($m) | Pre-tax profit ($m) | Earnings per share (¢) | Dividend per share (¢) |
| 2016 | 421 | 55 | 2.9 | 4.5 |
| 2017 | 461 | 76 | 3.8 | 5.0 |
| % change | +10 | +38 | +31 | +11 |
| Ex-div: | 17 Aug | |||
| Payment: | 06 Sep | |||
| *Includes intangible assets of $1.07bn, or 64¢ a share | ||||
