Baillie Gifford’s UK arm has seen profits shoot up after raking in £336m in management fees over the last financial year.
Accounts posted to Companies House show Baillie Gifford & Co Limited took home £22.5m in profits for the year ended 31 March 2021. This was up nearly 50% from £15.2m the year before.
Baillie Gifford & Co Limited is one of several subsidiaries that falls under parent company Baillie Gifford Group.
As the Edinburgh fund manager is independently owned by its partners it does not have to publish consolidated group accounts. But the UK division, which oversees its range of UK domiciled Oeics and investment trusts, provides a steer on the performance of the wider business.
Profits at Baillie Gifford & Co Limited were boosted by strong turnover with the Edinburgh manager amassing £336m in investment management fees, a 45% increase from 2020 when it took in £230.9m and more in line with revenue growth pre-Covid crisis in 2019.
But turnover was slightly dented by rising administrative expenses which climbed to £308.2m for the year compared to £212.1m in 2020.
FUM jumps 75%
The bumper set of annual results represent a big improvement on 2020’s figures which were impacted by the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
After markets bottomed out last March total assets in the UK division stood at £52.5bn, up modestly from £52.1bn in 2019.
But in the last 12 months funds under management had surged 75% to £91.6bn. The bulk of this was held in Oeics, which accounted for £60bn worth of assets, up from £35.6bn in 2020, followed by investment trusts which saw assets nearly double from £14.9bn to £28.8bn during the period. Canadian pooled vehicles made up an additional £2.8bn.
Baillie Gifford won two new mandates during the financial year, the £173m Witan Pacific Trust and the £213m Keystone Investment Trust, which have rebranded to the Baillie Gifford China Growth Trust and Keystone Positive Change Investment Trust, respectively.
On the open-ended side it launched the Baillie Gifford Health Innovation fund in December, which at the end of May was just shy of £100m. One fund, Baillie Gifford Sterling Aggregate Plus, was wound up in September after its largest investor pulled out.
Assets across the entire group were £324bn by the end of March, a 63% spike from the £197.8bn it held a year prior. The group has 47 partners and 1,442 permanent staff.
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