The firm said that for the first time in fifteen years it is revising its targeted number of teams from 10 – 12 to a new range of 12 -15. It said it is hoping to attract “additional teams either with assets or whose track-record is such that assets will likely follow quickly.”
The comments on its recruitment plans were made alongside the reporting of its latest results. It said asset under management dipped 12% on the same time last year to £7.3bn and 10% over the course of Q1. Net flows were minus £620m.
The firm pointed the finger at Japan and its ‘Abenomics’ policies a major cause of its financial year finishing on a “disappointing note”.
“Prior to the introduction of Abenomics in October 2012 our Japan UCITS had outperformed its benchmark by 57% since its launch in 2001, the firm said. “However, since Abenomics the process that the team deploys has not been able to deliver comparable returns and indeed has underperformed the market by a considerable margin over this period.”
Polar Capital said that it believes it can soon return to growing it AUM as the breadth of products it has seeing both inflows and interest from clients gives it confidence that once the Japanese business stabilises the numbers will move in the right direction.
Despite the disappointing figures the firm said it expects it will be able to maintain payment of its dividend.
