Record Share News (REC)

(Alliance News) - Currency manager Record PLC has increased its annual special payout by 38%, it said Wednesday, after solid revenue and profit growth.

Shares were 14% higher on Thursday morning at a price of 33.00 pence each.

Record will be returning a 0.69 pence per share special dividend for the year to March 31, up from 0.50p a year prior. This is on top of a final dividend of 1.15p, which brought the total regular dividend is 2.30p, flat on the previous year.

The two combined together mean the overall return has risen 7% year-on-year to 2.99p.

Record's pretax profit for the year increased 9% to GBP8.0 million, as revenue climbed 5% to GBP25.0 million. Assets under management equivalents fell 8% to USD57.3 billion.

"As a currency manager, Record manages only the impact of foreign exchange and not the underlying assets, therefore its 'assets under management' are notional rather than tangible," Record explained. "To distinguish this from the AUM of conventional asset managers, Record uses the concept of assets under management equivalents and by convention this is quoted in US dollars."

Political and economic uncertainty continued to affect financial markets during the period, Record said, but the company did well nonetheless.

Looking ahead, Record's Chair Neil Record said: "Financial markets, and by extension the foreign exchange markets, will continue to be subject to ongoing disruption in such various forms as political instability, trade tensions, regulatory changes, technological disruption and more fundamentally changes in the way our markets operate.

"Whilst such an environment brings a high degree of challenge, it also provides opportunities to those market participants having the capability and flexibility to react, including the ability to innovate and to invest in order to meet the specific demands of clients and potential clients."

"We have already shown we have the people and resources to meet these challenges head on, and I remain confident we will continue to do so going forward," he added.