Premier Miton’s adjusted profit before tax fell to £12.2m compared to £15.7m last fiscal year, dropping 22%.
Profit before tax nearly halved from £5.9bn to £3.2bn, factoring in £500,000 of acquisition and restructuring costs. . Premier Miton said the decline in profits stemmed from a “more difficult trading environment”, which saw the company’s average assets under management for the year fall to £10.3bn – a 5% decrease from 2023.
At the fiscal year end, assets under management reached £10.7bn, increasing 9% from last year, largely aided by the acquisition of Tellworth. The company also experienced net outflows of £318m for the year, although this was less than 2023’s outflows of £1.1bn.
Robert Colthorpe, chair of Premier Miton, said: “Discussions are ongoing about the roles and merits of different forms of capital and investment, whether active or passive, public or private, domestic or international. We believe that all have a place to play in the market and that genuinely active investing has a core and important role for savers, investors and capital users.
“Our approach is to offer a range of genuinely active funds with strategies that have a clear place in the investment landscape. There are times when some funds may underperform and we would seek to ensure that recovery is achievable and that, through management action if needed, we have confidence in a return to positive long-term performance.”
Across Premier Miton’s funds, 68% have achieved first or second quartile performance since launch or fund manager tenure.
The difficulty of active management in the past few years was echoed by CEO Mike O’Shea. In the past year, he said the company has focused on four key areas, including an investment performance that is “as strong as it can be”, effective business management through operational efficiency and cost control, the integration of Tellworth, and distribution activity.
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“We recognise that over the last two or three years market conditions for active fund management businesses such as ours have been difficult. Our response to this has been to make sure that our business is well diversified by asset class and by fund so that we are not overly exposed to any one investment theme, manager, or risk,” O’Shea said.
“By diversifying our business across equities, fixed income, multi-asset and absolute return we aim to ensure that our revenue stream from the assets that we manage is less volatile than it would be if we concentrated on a single asset class. This allows us the freedom to manage funds and mandates the way we believe they should be managed – taking and managing risks that will allow our investors to produce returns over time that are ahead of comparable market indices.”