Man Group PLC (LSE:EMG) reported a drop in first-half assets under management and said it expects some volatility in flows “as clients access liquidity and rebalance their portfolios due to market movements”.
Assets under management (AUM) were US$142.3bn as of June 30, 4% less than six months earlier – hit by a “negative investment performance” and foreign exchange movements.
But this still beat the US$135.3bn for the equivalent period in 2021.
And in the six months ended June 30, the fund manager made a core loss on investments of US$21mln, compared to a profit of US$17mln a year earlier.
Nevertheless, pre-tax profit increased to US$395mln in the first half, up from US$323mln a year earlier as it grew its net inflows on the back of higher fee revenue.
The London-listed investment management also took US$3.2bn of net inflows during the period, which it said was 2.7% above the industry on an asset-weighted basis.
“We enter the second half with high performance fee potential and a good level of client engagement,” Luke Ellis, chief executive, said.
“While we expect some volatility in flows in the near term, as clients access liquidity and rebalance their portfolios due to market movements, we remain focused on the long term.”
The fund manager grew management fee revenue and core performance fees in the interim to US$469mln and US$404mln respectively.
And the US$125mln share buyback it announced at the end of June is now 31% complete, as of 29 July, it said in today's statement.
The board declared an interim dividend of 5.6c per share, flat on last June’s dividend.
And it added the dividend will stay flat “until such time as the ratio of interim to final dividend gets closer to 1:2, in line with the broader UK market”.