Jupiter Fund Management's H1 profit, AUM rise

Jupiter Fund Management posted a small increase in pre-tax profit for the first half as assets under management edged higher.

For the six months ended 30 June, the investment manager said pre-tax profit rose to £86.6m from £84m in the same period last year, as assets under management rose to £37m from £34.3m. Consensus estimates were for pre-tax profit of £81.5m.

Underlying earnings per share fell 3% to 14.4p and the company lifted its interim dividend by 12.5% to 4.5p per share.

Jupiter said that following a strong first quarter for inflows, progress in the second quarter was held back by uncertainty ahead of the EU referendum. Still, net mutual fund inflows over the first half totalled £400m, with a strong contribution from foreign exchange movements at the very end of June.

Chief executive Maarten Slendebroek said: "Jupiter has continued to deliver strong investment outperformance after all fees in the first half of the year. Net flows were positive despite the market backdrop and we made further targeted investments to support our strategy of diversification by product, client type and geography which continues to deliver on behalf of our clients and shareholders. Since the end of June, we have continued to see net flows into our products.

“Jupiter is well prepared for a period of potentially heightened volatility and remains focused on accessing the opportunities presented by long term demographic changes to deliver growth in a disciplined manner for our shareholders and clients."

Numis said EPS was 7% ahead of its estimate and 4% ahead of consensus, predominantly reflecting another decent first-half performance fee.

“We continue to believe that Jupiter offers a favourable combination of exposure to structural long term growth in the retail savings market, whilst being paid a 6.7% total yield to wait in the short term,” the brokerage said.

At 0938 BST, shares were up 2.3% to 408.20p.