Perpetual up and running in Dublin
Perpetual Trustees has been given the green light by Irish authorities to kick off its new Dublin-based global equities business, with the go-ahead coinciding with today’s release of its half year accounts that included a 31 per cent rise in operating profit after tax to $54.3 million.
Perpetual said the granting of authorisation by the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority meant its previously outlined strategy of developing a more balanced portfolio was now officially on track, with the Dublin offshoot adding to the firm’s new Australia-based credit team.
Meanwhile in today’s announcement to the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX), the group said its performance for the six months ending December had been underpinned by a 17 per cent increase in total operating revenues to $174 million.
Perpetual managing director David Deverall said the record jump in operating profit had been due to “continued strong investment performance, solid flows into the wealth management and corporate trust businesses and the strength of underlying markets”.
Funds under management in the wealth management division grew by a whopping 20 per cent in the second half of 2004, rising from $21.7 billion to $26 billion over the six month period, while the corporate trust division saw its funds rise by 10 per cent to $121.4 billion.
Perpetual’s net profit after tax grew by 58 per cent to $66.8 million over the period. However this included profit from the sale of one-off items such as the Symetry platform ($12.8 million) and investments ($11.4 million), less the costs incurred from setting up the global equities business ($7.7 million) and changing its Sydney premises ($4 million).
Deverall believed the group would continue to benefit from the growth of both the retirement savings industry and the corporate trust sector.
“Given this favourable operating environment…we expect to record an increase in full year operating profit after tax over the prior year of approximately 25 per cent, in the absence of market fluctuations,” Deverall said.
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