Writing in the Swiss investment group’s 2014 Annual Report, Johannes de Gier and Alexander Friedman, GAM’s chairman and CEO respectively said: “With 30- plus years of experience in this segment and current assets under management of approximately CHF 12.5 billion, we are committed to increasing the market penetration of our diverse spectrum of multi-asset class solutions.”
In order to achieve this, the group said it will continue to invest in its multi-asset offering and plans to strengthen the investment process, centralise the teams’ support resources.
It will also plans to expand it both organically and through focused acquisitions.
According to GAM, the thinking behind the strategy has been driven by increasing evidence that “growth opportunities in asset management will be bifurcated between low-cost passive products and highly active, absolute return/alternative strategies and solutions.”
The group is also going to simplify its brand structure by dropping the Swiss and Global name, to concentrate on better positioning its two remaining brands GAM and Julius Bar, which it says have complementary strengths in different markets and client segments.
“A more straightforward approach to branding will be accompanied by intensified content marketing activities,” the firm said.
This decision comes as part of a broader strategy to enhance the group’s operating leverage and improve efficiency.
“With the establishment of centralised leadership over its company-wide operations function, the Group has started to analyse the entire operations and technology ecosystem supporting its investment capabilities and product offering,” the group added.
Results
For the full year, underlying pretax profit fell 7% to CHF216.7m on the back of lower performance fees, while underlying net profit fell 16% to CHF177.2 partly as a result, the group said, of a more normalised tax rate of 18.2%.
In the firm’s investment management division, the group reported net new inflows of CHF2.4bn, pushing assets under management to CHF76.1bn.
GAM kept its dividend for the year unchanged at CHF0.65 per share.
