A global investment management group, managing assets for both institutional and retail clients from offices around the world. I have a holding in my income portfolio (epic code: ADN).
Aberdeen Asset Management announced their interim results to 31 March 2014 today, that continued to show a decline in Assets under Management (AuM). Although AuM were £324.5bn, if we exclude the £134.1bn added as a result of the SWIP acquisition, AuM were £190.4bn compared to £200.4bn at the end of the last financial year end and £193.6bn at 31 December 2013.
Revenue was down 2.4% at £503.5m, with underlying profit before tax (PBT) down 2.6% at £217m and reported PBT £168.7m down 10.4%. Underlying EPS was 14.32p down 3.8% and reported EPS at 10.67p was below last year by 14.2%. Although free cash flow was below last year's £220.1m, it was still relatively strong at £177.8m and net cash decreased only slightly from the year-end figure of £426.6m to £410.4m at the interim stage. The interim dividend has been increased by a very substantial 12.5% to 6.75p, this compares to the first interim dividend I received back in June 2007 of 2.6p.
Management stated that "...Towards the end of the period, there were indications of some pick-up in investor sentiment towards emerging markets, although we anticipate that some uncertainty could remain. More recently, an encouraging improvement in investment performance should improve the outlook for our equities strategies..."
There was reinforcement from management on their strategy of the use of free cash flow "...As we stated when we announced the transaction, the addition of SWIP will reinforce Aberdeen's progressive dividend policy and, while we will incur some one-off integration costs over the next year, it will enhance our ability to return surplus capital to shareholders over time..."
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