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LONDON (Alliance News) - Fund management company City of London Investment Group PLC reported a 5% fall in its funds under management in the first half of the the year, after "difficult and volatile" conditions in emerging markets.
City of London Investment's funds under management slipped to USD4.0 billion at the end of June, from USD4.2 billion at the end of 2015. During the same period the MSCI Emerging Markets TR Net Index fell by 12% in dollar terms.
City of London Investment made a pretax profit of GBP8.0 million in the first six months of 2016, down from GBP8.9 million year on year. Revenue dipped to GBP24.4 million from GBP25.4 million. Administrative costs increased by 6% to GBP14.4 million from GBP13.6 million.
City of London Investment will pay a maintained final dividend of 16 pence a share, making for a total of 24p for the year, the same as in 2015. The company noted this would lead to a cover of 0.97 time earnings per share but said the "much improved outlook" fully justified the payment.
Chairman David Cardale noted that a weaker pound following the UK's vote to leave the European would have a "very material effect" on profits in a positive way, as the company makes little of its income in sterling but a "substantial percentage" of its costs are sterling based. He also said he was optimistic that Brexit would cause little change to current trade flows.
"Costs have been contained and so the outcome for the year will be determined by the direction of markets, our investment performance and client wins and redemptions. As regards the latter we are grateful to the loyalty shown by clients during a period when Emerging Markets have been volatile and only really appealed to contrarians. I have every reason to believe that our well-honed investment process for our core products will continue to deliver returns superior to our peer group" he added.
Shares in City of London Investment Group were down 6.5% at 347.50 pence Monday.
By Adam Clark; adamclark@alliancenews.com
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