Polar Capital has bounced back from its Covid lows with assets surging to a record £20.9bn in the last 12 months.
In an update ahead of its final results the Aim-listed manager said assets under management had jumped 10% over the quarter to 31 March and 71% from £12.2bn a year ago after the Covid crisis wiped £2bn from its total.
It has now doubled the size of its business over three and half years which chief executive Gavin Rochussen (pictured) said was “testament to our strategic focus of offering a diversified range of funds whilst maintaining a rigorous focus on performance and active management”.
Polar’s shares were up 1.6% at the time of writing, hitting a record high of 734p.
The £8.7bn boost to AUM over the past 12 months was driven by £2.1bn in net flows, a stark contrast to 2019’s £1.2bn worth of redemptions, as well as £5.2bn from market movement and fund performance and £1.7bn from acquisition-related activity.
This more than offset the £301m loss from the closure of the Polar UK Absolute Equity fund which was wound down due to the poor health of manager, Guy Rushton, who subsequently passed away.
Since breaking its streak of outflows at the end of June last year, money coming into the business has continued to climb quarter-on-quarter. In the first three months of 2021 Polar’s 14 funds took in £643m, up from £556m in the quarter ended 31 December. Rochussen said the net flow momentum had continued into the first two weeks in April.
The Polar boss highlighted the “pleasing” pipeline of flows into Jorry Rask Nøddekær’s Emerging Markets Stars range, which has a sustainable bent and is about to approach its three-year track record.
He added that the integration of Dalton Capital, which Polar acquired in December, was progressing on schedule and would be completed by the group’s financial half-year end.
Polar’s audited full-year results are due to be published on 1 July.
