LONDON (Reuters) -Shares in Britain's Jupiter Fund Management rallied on Friday after the company reported forecast-beating profit and early signs of investor appetite recovering for UK assets, despite reporting a jump in clients withdrawing funds.
Investors have begun looking again at UK markets as a potential haven amid political turmoil elsewhere in the world, after years of being shunned by global capital.
"Markets have responded positively to the increased political stability in the UK that comes with the incoming government and if this improvement in sentiment is sustained, Jupiter is likely to be a strong beneficiary," said Jupiter CEO Matthew Beesley.
Jupiter reported an 11% increase in pre-tax profit to 38.7 million pounds ($50 million) for the six months to June, helped by a decrease in costs, and announced a 3.2 pence dividend.
Those figures beat market expectations, analysts at Peel Hunt said in a note, adding they welcomed improved guidance from the company on costs.
Jupiter's shares were last up 8%, having fallen 12% so far this year prior to the earnings update.
However, client withdrawals of cash continued to weigh on the company, with net outflows jumping to 3.4 billion pounds over the period, driven by the departure of key fund managers.
Jupiter said most of the outflows were because of the planned departure of its star manager Ben Whitmore in the coming months to launch his own independent boutique, as well as the managers of the firm's Chrysalis Investments Trust leaving.
Excluding the impact of these departures, net outflows over the period were about 200 million pounds, the firm said. Flows of client cash had been flat in the first-half of the prior year.
The outflows contributed to a dip in overall assets under management to 51.3 billion pounds, down 2% from 52.2 billion pounds at the end of 2023.
($1 = 0.7774 pounds)