Perpetual has no immediate plans to end its company review, with the group’s chief executive stating good progress is being made.
Perpetual managing director and chief executive Chris Ryan said the year ending 30 June 2011 has been an extremely tough market but is pleased with the company’s performance.
Ryan’s appointment in February 2011 commenced with the task of reviewing all of Perpetual’s businesses and resulted in substantial changes including exiting its Dublin-based investment operation and its smartsuper self-managed superannuation fund administration business.
He said management was only focused on areas that could offer growth.
“We wanted to be more focused around the portfolio and we’ve made a lot of changes this year – sold smartsuper, closed the Dublin business, outsourced the private wealth platform [and] reduced costs,” he said.
“The process is by no means complete but we are making good progress. What we’re looking to do is actively manage our portfolio in the best way so, in a sense, a review is never over.”
He said in order to ensure growth and better performance for the future, the company was looking to improve its cost structure and would continue to support its successful funds aimed at retirement income solutions.
“We’ve also got new products that are under development that are going to be released in the next few months,” he said.
In the first half of the financial year, private equity firm KKR approached Perpetual about buying the company but no formal bid or offer was made, Ryan said.
About a year ago, KKR lobbed a $1.75 billion offer takeover bid for Perpetual. However, the fund management company rejected the offer of $38 to $40 as too low.
“It was an approach made to us as an indicative, non-binding, highly conditional price range and it was really a request to start a discussion with us, which the management and the board at the time did,” said Ryan, who took over as chief executive months after the bid was turned down.
Ryan confirmed both parties walked away from talks and the group has not been approached since.
“We’re listed on the share market so our shares are always for sale,” he said.
Perpetual announced yesterday that the challenging market conditions of the 2011 financial year required it to adopt a stronger focus across its funds management, private wealth and corporate trustee units, in line with its review for improvements.
