Jupiter Fund Management reports drop in full-year AuM

(Sharecast News) - Jupiter Fund Management reported a decline in many key metrics for the full-year, leading management to roughly halve the payout to their shareholders. Yet company boss Matthew Beesley linked that performance to recent changes and sounded a confident note on the outlook.

"We have made material progress to better position Jupiter for future success and have progressed in each of our strategic objectives. We have transformed our UK equity capabilities, brought in high quality investment talent in European equities, and acquired the team and institutional assets of Origin, who joined in January this year, adding a new dimension and scalability to our global equity franchise," Beesley said.

"The actions we took during the last year, together with improving performance and encouraging early signs this year, give us confidence that we will see near-term growth in the majority of our investment capabilities."

In particular, the business registered net outflows during the period, but the chief executive officer emphasised how gross flows in fact rose by £14bn.

As well, Beesley argued that the net outflows were predominantly the result of redemptions from strategies that had been run by the Value team - but which now were complete.

He also referenced the change in management in Jupiter's European equity capability, which he said led to about £350m of short-term outflows.

All told, the emerging markets specialist reported a 13% drop in assets under management to £45.3bn, amid negative total net flows of £10.3bn.

Total underlying net outflows hit £3.3bn with nearly all coming through during the last three months of 2024, Jupiter said.

Underlying flows excluded outflows from strategies formerly run by the Value team or linked to the management change at Chrysalis Investments.

Net revenues meanwhile slipped by 1% to reach £364.1m, underlying profit before tax by 7% to £97.5m and underlying earnings per share by 9% to 13.4p.

Critically, the company's cost:income ratio worsened from 73% in 2023 to 78%.

Hence in part the reduction in the total dividend per share from 9.8p to 5.4p.

As of 0853 BST, shares of Jupiter Fund Management were trading down by 4.09% at 77.30p and were near their lowest ebb ever.