Financial strength underpins delivery of our strategy
· Fee based revenue 6% higher and adjusted operating profit 47% higher with strong growth across all three vectors.
· Delivered improved operating leverage with cost/income ratio of 79%, benefitting from a 1% reduction in adjusted operating expenses due to focus on cost management.
· Achieved targeted £400m of annualised synergies.
· IFRS profit before tax of £1,115m, primarily reflecting the recognition of the full market value of our residual stake in HDFC Asset Management and the gain on sale of the c5% stake in September 2021.
· Adjusted diluted EPS of 13.7p, 56% higher than 2020.
· Adjusted capital generation increased by 40% to £366m, reflecting strong profit performance.
· Disciplined approach to capital management delivered surplus regulatory capital of £1.8bn (on an IFPR basis) with £1.6bn of capital generated and £0.8bn deployed in driving growth and returns to shareholders.
· Full year dividend of 14.6p in line
with our dividend policy, 1.18x covered by adjusted capital generation.
· Positive trend in H1 2021 net outflows (excluding liquidity and LBG tranche withdrawals) continued in H2 2021, resulting in net outflows of (£3.2bn) for the year compared with (£12.3bn) in 2020.
· AUMA of £542bn up 1% reflecting positive market movements, the impact of corporate actions and net flows.
· Net outflows position in Investments improved to (£7.6bn) (excluding liquidity and LBG) from (£15.8bn) in 2020.
· Institutional and Wholesale net outflows (excluding liquidity) improved to (£2.1bn) from (£8.9bn) in 2020 largely due to lower net outflows in equities and net inflows in fixed income and real assets.
· Adviser and Personal vectors more than doubled net inflows to £3.9bn and £0.6bn, respectively, with record AUM of £8.9bn in discretionary investment management.
· 3-year investment performance stable at 67% of AUM above benchmark.
From part 3;
Dividends
As disclosed in the Annual report and accounts in March 2021, it is the Board's current intention to maintain the total annual dividend at 14.6p (with the interim and final both at 7.3p per share), until it is covered at least 1.5 times by adjusted capital generation, at which point the Board will seek to grow the dividend in line with its assessment of the underlying medium-term growth in profitability.
The Board has accordingly recommended a final dividend for 2021 of 7.3p (2020: 7.3p) per share. This is subject to shareholder approval and will be paid on 24 May 2022 to shareholders on the register at close of business on 8 April 2022. The dividend payment is expected to be £155m.
External dividends are funded from the cumulative dividend income that abrdn plc receives from its subsidiaries and associates (see below for details of cash and distributable reserves). The need to hold appropriate regulatory capital is the primary restriction on the Group's ability to pay dividends. Further information on the principal risks and uncertainties that may affect the business and therefore dividends is provided in the Risk management section.