Man Group swings to loss, but FuM up

Hedge fund manager Man Group swung to a pre-tax loss for the year to the end of December, but total funds under management rose.

Funds under management were up 3% to $80.9bn, with net inflows of $1.9bn, up from $0.3bn the year before.

However, the company posted a statutory pre-tax loss of $272m compared to a profit of $184m in 2015, mainly on the back of exceptional charges of $379m.

The company's pre-tax profit stripping out exceptional charges dropped to $205m from $400m, which comprised adjusted net management fee pre-tax profit of $178m, down from $194m.

The group recommended a final dividend of 4.5 cents per share, bringing the total dividend of the year to 9 cents, down from 10.2 cents.

Chief executive officer Luke Ellis said: "2016 was a challenging year for the investment management industry and despite respectable relative performance from our strategies, this is reflected in our results.

"Against this backdrop, we have made real progress in positioning the firm for the future. We delivered positive net flows, in a year when our industry saw outflows. We had positive alpha across our long only strategies, during a year in which many questioned the benefits of active management. We put in place a revised management structure and continued to control our cost base, and the majority of our performance fee eligible funds ended the year at, or close to, high water mark."

Man said it has kicked off 2017 with a good pipeline of interest from clients and an encouraging performance across most of its strategies as the new global political environment has created many alpha opportunities, but it remains early days in an uncertain market.

At 1145 GMT, the shares were down 3.9% to 140.70p.