In a trading update last week, Platinum Asset Management provided a statement on its performance for the half-year ended 31 December, ahead of the group’s interim results next month.
“As foreshadowed in the AGM chairman’s address to shareholders, recent falls in equity markets mean that the company will record an unrealised loss on its seed investments and also receive little in the way of absolute return related performance fee income for the half,” the group said.
Platinum’s FUM at the end of December 2018 was $24.089 billion, down marginally on November’s $24.189 billion.
At the group’s AGM on 15 November 2018, chairman Michael Cole noted that the fund manager had experienced two very different halves over the calendar year.
“For the nine months to 31 March 2018, all of our international funds (i.e. global equity funds without a sector or industry bias) delivered outstanding investment performance relative to the MSCI AC World Net Index ($A),” he said.
“However, the combination of the trade war between China and the US, rising US interest rates and the tightening of credit in China, led to these funds underperforming in both absolute and relative terms during the latter period.”
Meanwhile, the Hamish Douglass-led fund manager Magellan Financial Group eat projections to deliver $41 million of net inflows in the final month of 2018. Net retail inflows totalled $90 million while net institutional outflows were $49 million for the month.
At the Magellan Annual Adviser Roadshow in Sydney in October, CEO and chief investment officer Hamish Douglass said the group’s largest single equity position is still in Google’s parent company, Alphabet, and the fund manager remains keen on Visa and Mastercard as the world moves toward a cashless economy.
