Challenger confident despite profit fall
FUNDS management groupChallenger Internationalhas reported a drop in net profit, posting only $35.8 million for the half year to December 2002, down from $109 million in the previous corresponding period.
Challenger says the drop was due to a number of one-off items, including a $14.6 million write down of the group’s UK operations and the sale of the group’s broking business to Bell Potter Securities as part of a bid to cut costs.
While the group’s overall figures stayed in the black, the funds management division reported a rise in pre-tax earnings to $24.1 million from $6.7 million.
According to Challenger managing director Bill Ireland, reaping the “benefits of scale in our funds management business” resulted in the rise in pre-tax earnings in that division.
“We’re averaging $50 million to $60 million in net funds growth a week,” Ireland says.
During the six months to December 31, Challenger attracted fund inflows of more than $700 million across its flagship products, including the Howard Mortgage Trust, Synergy master trust platform and Challenger High Yield Fund.
As a result of the increased inflows, research houseAssirthas labelled Challenger the fifth largest recipient of retail investment monies in its December 2002 quarterly reports, posting $11.9 billion at the end of December, up from $9 billion at the end of June.
Recommended for you
In this week’s episode of Relative Return Insider, AMP chief economist Shane Oliver joins the show to discuss Australia’s stagnating productivity ahead of the government’s economic reform roundtable, and how picking all the “low-hanging fruit” for reform in the ’90s helped kick off a surge that has since stalled out.
In this episode of Relative Return Insider, host Keith Ford is joined by Cyber Daily deputy editor David Hollingworth to take you inside the evolving landscape of cyber crime, how even huge companies can be at risk of breaches, and what that means for anyone trying to understand the risks.
The latest episode of Relative Return sees host Laura Dew chat with Richard Ivers and Mike Younger, co-portfolio managers at Prime Value Asset Management, on their newly launched Microcap Fund and opportunities in small and mid-cap shares.
In this week’s episode of Relative Return Insider, hosts Maja Garaca Djurdjevic and Keith Ford dive into the week's top news, from investors remaining blasé about tariff announcements to bitcoin surging and unemployment numbers.
