Record's (LON:RECL) first-half results announced on 18 November held no surprises after a detailed Q217 trading update issued in October. While underlying profits were down modestly year-on-year, this reflected lumpy allocations to a tactical mandate in H116. More importantly, assets under management equivalents (AUME) and client numbers increased and the company reports that the recent prominence of currency volatility has helped to increase interest in a range of Record’s products. The current rating of c 12x FY17e earnings appears conservative and the ordinary yield (before any special payment) stands at over 5%.
H117 results
Compared with end March 2016, AUME rose 4% to $55.0bn from $52.9bn under a new classification approach set out on page 2. Inflows contributed 2.6% to growth and market moves 4.3% partly offset by a 3% negative exchange rate move. Passive hedging mandates now comprise 83% of the total AUME and generate 53% of fee income, covering operating costs before the group profit share scheme. Underlying pretax profit nearly matched H116; a period that benefited from an unusually high allocation to a tactical bespoke mandate. The majority of currency for return strategies performed well, a potentially positive indicator for future flows. We leave our forecasts unchanged having raised them following the Q2 trading update.
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