Liontrust Asset Management Plc, the specialist fund management group, today announced its audited results for the financial year ended 31 March 2023.
Results:
- Adjusted profit before tax of £87.1 million (2022: £96.6 million), a decrease of 10%.
- Adjusted diluted earnings per share of 109.8 pence per share (2022: 127.6 pence per share), a decrease of 14%.
- Profit before tax of £49.3 million (2022: £79.3 million), a decrease of 38% (see note 5 in the full statement via link below for a reconciliation to Adjusted profit before tax).
- Gross Profit of £230 million (2022: £231 million), includes £18.5 million of performance fee revenues (2022: £12.6 million).
Dividend:
- Second interim dividend of 50.0 pence per share (2022: 50.0 pence). This brings the total dividend for the financial year ending 31 March 2023 to 72.0 pence per share (2022: 72.0 pence).
Assets under management and advice:
- On 31 March 2023, assets under management and advice (“AuMA”) were £31.4 billion (2022: £33.5 billion), a decrease of 6%.
- AuMA as at 16 June 2023 were £30.5 billion.
Flows:
- Net outflows of £4.8 billion in the financial year ended 31 March 2023 (2022: £2.5 billion inflow).
Commenting, John Ions, Chief Executive, said:
“We are focused on ensuring the future growth of Liontrust. The business is in strong health despite the challenges of the past year and we are seeking to build on this through the proposed acquisition of GAM Holding AG (“GAM”) to accelerate the strategic aims of Liontrust becoming a specialist global investment manager.
This will provide greater scale and investment and distribution capability for the benefit of clients and shareholders of both businesses. The financial strength of Liontrust, reflected in maintaining the dividend at 72 pence a share for the full year, will help us to achieve these objectives.
The historic growth of Liontrust has been based on investment teams with rigorous and repeatable processes, strong client relationships, excellent communications, a powerful brand, risk management and a robust infrastructure to support expansion. These will continue to be the drivers of the business and are why we are optimistic about the future of Liontrust.
Our investment teams have strong long-term performance based on their distinct investment processes. Such rigorous processes have never been more important given the need to help clients navigate the current political, economic and market environments. While performance can never be predictable, processes must be. Confidence about investment processes provides belief for the long term despite periods of underperformance, which we have seen for some of our teams over the last year.
The sales and marketing teams have ensured that client relationships, communications and service remain strong, both in person and digitally, leading to good engagement. Liontrust’s brand is strong in the UK and has been gaining awareness in parts of Europe. This includes being seen as leaders in sustainable investment and UK equities in the UK (source: Research in Finance).
While outflows have continued into the current financial year, I am confident we are continuing to do the right things and the dedication and commitment of everyone at Liontrust will reap its rewards in the future.
The proposed acquisition of GAM will help us achieve our strategic objectives through the global distribution footprint, expansion of asset classes, processes and investment capability, and the combined business infrastructure.
The collective scale of and expertise across the enlarged group will provide financial stability and certainty to GAM’s clients and shareholders. Combining the two businesses will give a stronger platform for future growth that will benefit clients, shareholders and employees of both Liontrust and GAM. This is shown by GAM’s investment managers publicly endorsing the proposed acquisition by Liontrust.
Vinay Abrol and I have met GAM’s investment managers distribution teams and other employees in the UK, Zurich, Madrid, Milan and New York and have been extremely impressed by their commitment and the capability they will bring to the enlarged group. Liontrust has a successful track record of integrating acquisitions quickly and efficiently and we are confident of achieving the same with this acquisition which will result in Zurich becoming Liontrust’s headquarters for continental Europe.
Growing a business is never a smooth line upwards as we have seen recently. The opportunities for Liontrust are clear, however, and we are confident that we have the investment capability, distribution, brand, business processes and commitment to take advantage of them.”
The statement in full can be found HERE.
