Jupiter shares rise on back of solid fund flow
MARKETS cheered a resilient set of results from Jupiter Fund Management yesterday after the UK equity specialist revealed a £600m increase in assets under management and strong mutual fund inflows.
Shares in the firm shot up three per cent in the first 90 minutes of trading after its half year results showed £210m of quarterly flows into its mutual fund range and £37m of flows into its private clients business.
The company, which has a strong foothold in the retail equity fund market, also revealed it had paid down £33m of debt, leaving it with £110m left to be serviced over the next three years.
Chief executive Edward Bonham Carter said: “There’s lots of reasons to be nervous out there, but the profile of fund flows are better in general.
“That may be because UK investors hold their nerve rather better. It’s a combination of a good customer base and good fund performance.”
Headline figures for the firm were downbeat, with pre-tax profits down from £37.3m a year ago to £31.2m.
Meanwhile a four per cent drop in net management fees also pushed revenues down from £128.3m last year to £117.7m today.
BarCap analyst Daniel Garrod said Jupiter funds’ outperformance was a “differentiator which allows it to continue building assets”.
Analyst Thomas Mills from Keefe, Bruyette & Woods added: “These results confirm that, whilst concentrated, the business is best-in-class in the UK retail space.”