The Lemon Fool

The company has already disclosed that assets under administration rose from £12bn to £13.8bn in the past financial year, a 15% gain, with net inflows adding £0.6bn and markets/performance £1.3bn. Consensus expects pre-tax profit of £68m.

Peel Hunt analyst Stuart Duncan said: “Although these will show a record level of profitability, driven in part by performance fees, conditions more recently have been challenging. As has already been reported in April’s update, H2 was very different from H1 in terms of flow momentum. Whilst H1 saw positive inflows of £0.9bn (and overall AUM growth of 23%), Q3 saw outflows of £0.3bn before some stabilisation in Q4 with outflows of just £0.1bn.”

Inflows to funds managed by Polar Capital (POLR) came to £150m in the three months to 30 June, split between long-only and alternative mandates. The group’s funds also benefited from £727m of market movements and performance, pushing assets under management up 6 per cent overall to £14.7bn. Chief executive Gavin Rochussen called the result “pleasing”, and the shares remain a buy.