F&C shareholders will receive 120p for each share, representing a 30.5% uplift on F&C's closing share price on 24th January. F&C shareholders on the register at 4th April will also receive a dividend of 2p per share for the financial year to 31 December. The shares are now trading at 121.5p.
BMO also owns Lloyd George Management and Pyrford International, both with offices in London. The group's global asset management arm already has £78.5bn in assets under management, with the F&C deal bringing a further £82.1bn (at 31 December 2013).
The group has seen significant change over the past decade, merging with ISIS in 2004, before taking over Thames River in 2010. It was taken over by activist investor Edward Bramson in 2011, who embarked on significant cost-cutting and a reorganisation of the business before standing down last year.
The group continues to drop assets. The latest quarterly figures show assets under management down from £90bn to £82bn over the quarter, largely on the back of the withdrawal of Netherlands insurance company Achmea's assets during the fourth quarter. Strategic Partner net outflows now stand at £20.3 billion for the full year.
There was still positive momentum in the consumer and institutional funds. The group's retail funds saw net inflows of £200 million in the quarter taking total tetail net inflows for the year to £585 million. In particular, there were strong inflows into the F&C SICAV fund range, with particular growth in the European Smaller Companies and Global Convertible Bond funds. There was momentum into the group's Multi-Manager range of funds, notably the F&C MM Navigator Distribution fund.
Five of the group's investment trusts issued a total of £23 million of new shares during the quarter. However, the decision to reduce the gearing of the Foreign and Colonial Investment trust accounted for an outflow of £50 million in the quarter, thus leading to an overall net outflow of £31 million of investment trust assets for the period. However, for the year as a whole, eight of the group's trusts issued new shares and net issuance of £106 million is the highest in recent years.
