BT reports 44 per cent profit drop



BT Investment Management (BTIM) has reported a 44 per cent decline in net profit after tax to just $12.7 million for the six months ending March 31, but has described it as a satisfactory result in tough conditions.
The company said the result was slightly better than the range of a 45 per cent to 55 per cent decline announced in a market update in February.
BTIM chairman Brian Scullin said the results had been directly affected by the sharp market declines experienced in the six-month period as the company’s funds under management, revenues and profitability are linked to the markets.
The company said funds under management stood at $30.6 billion as at March 31 and that this represented a decline of $4.7 billion for the six-month period.
However, it said against this backdrop, a strong relative market performance by BTIM funds and a growing balance of cash related products mitigated market falls, resulting in a 14 per cent reduction in funds under management compared to a 24 per cent decline in the All Ordinaries Index.
Looking over the horizon, BTIM chief executive Dirk Morris said the company was cautious on the short-term outlook and suggested its second-half revenue would inevitably reflect the lower opening funds under management balance.
He added that further substantial cost savings were becoming harder to deliver.
However, Morris said in the longer-term, underlying superannuation fundamentals remained positive in Australia and the unprecedented scale of government policy stimulus would eventually gain traction.
Recommended for you
In this week’s episode of Relative Return Insider, Professor Robert Brooks of Monash Business School joins the show to unpack the economic and market implications of rising tensions between Israel and Iran.
In this week’s episode of Relative Return Insider, hosts Maja Garaca Djurdjevic and Keith Ford discuss a busy week of announcements from ASIC, with submissions to its public and private markets paper made (mostly) public.
In this week’s episode of Relative Return Insider, AMP chief economist Shane Oliver joins the show to unpack Australia’s underwhelming March quarter GDP figures and what they signal for the Reserve Bank’s next move.
The latest episode of Relative Return sees host Laura Dew chat with Brian Jones, founder of outsourcing company VA Platinum, on why choosing to outsource certain functions of your business can enable you to be efficient and productive.