Polar Capital Share Discussion Threads

[diviincomesearch] 03/12/2020 13:06

Steady uptick as people cotton on to the growth in assets and that PC will benefit from the value/cyclical rotation with its more beaten down funds. Global Insurance and U.K. value Opps in particular.

Be interested to see what the AuM update is.

[rcturner2] 01/12/2020 11:45

Good coverage in last week's IC. Report on the results rates it a buy and Polar also appears in a small cap income stock screen.

[robow] 20/11/2020 09:02

thanks Lomax

[lomax99] 20/11/2020 08:18

IC comment

Polar Capital managing capacity

Active fund manager posts rise in profits and dividend
Fifty-five per cent of all assets now in the tech fund

Three jobs stick out of Gavin Rochussen’s in-tray. After a run of good fund performance, the Polar Capital (POLR) chief executive needs to maintain a collegiate culture eight months into a pandemic, reduce the proportional weighting to technology stocks, and find a way to expand distribution.

The first challenge was less of an issue in the spring, when Mr Rochussen’s teams handled the novelty with ease. But long and irregular hours to meet client demand take their toll eventually. “I’ve definitely noticed lockdown fatigue,” he acknowledges.

The second task has grown alongside the run in tech stocks since March. Assets in the sector swelled from £5.3bn to £9.1bn in the half-year to September, and now make up 55 per cent of all funds managed. A soft-close of the Global Technology Fund – only existing unit holders can top up – should help. “The key for me is to grow the others,” notes the CEO.

Ideally, this needs to happen with an expanding distribution network, especially after revenues dipped 3.5 per cent in the period once gains on seed investments are excluded. A push into the US might be the answer. In two to four years’ time Mr Rochussen hopes assets could grow here by “a couple of billion dollars”, market conditions pending.

Analysts think profit growth is viable from here. FactSet-compiled consensus forecasts show earnings of 51.4p per share for the full-year to March, rising to 53p in FY2022.

The shares have delivered a total return of 9 per cent since our initial tip (612p, 20 Sep 2018). That’s scant reward for the quality of the Polar fund brand and focus on booming sectors, but a 21 per cent premium to the FTSE All-Share nonetheless. Despite growth in the dividend, cover still looks healthy, so we stand by our income-themed call. Buy.

[nerja] 19/11/2020 08:22

Results Look good to me

[diviincomesearch] 13/11/2020 08:33

The North American fund still had heavy outflows in October. With the slight value rotation this week and positive election and virus news, that will have helped the more value tilted funds like U.K. opps and Japan too.

Emerging market stars fund ticking up nicely on inflows- the automation and AI fund a bit more ordinary.

Performance fees looking far far better than last year, combined with the fact that the company throws off lots of cash and is already strongly net cash, it’s a very undemanding valuation.

Just needs the other funds to pick up the slack from the Technology fund now soft closing and the prospects are rosy indeed.

[petewy] 09/11/2020 10:13

Highest for two years.

[wilmot666] 04/11/2020 19:34

I think its just buying in the run up to the results.

[petewy] 04/11/2020 18:25

Polar hold US tech stocks and Nasdaq etc shot up today.

[nerja] 04/11/2020 16:25

Got me can’t find anything, but something seems to be going on

[waterloo01] 04/11/2020 16:23

Great but why?

[zho] 04/11/2020 16:15

>>lucky top up at 5.74p>>

Blimey, that was lucky ;-)

[nerja] 04/11/2020 16:14

Anybody know what’s happening here, lucky top up at 5.74 p, but it’s going rocket mode.

[zho] 13/10/2020 10:46

Analyst Paul McGinnis retained his ‘buy’ recommendation and increased his ‘fair value’ target price from 660p to 750p. The asset manager last reported a ‘second consecutive strong quarter’ with assets under management rising 7%, or £1.1bn, to £16.4bn.

‘We think asset manager business models with track records of generating material performance fees - like Polar, and also Man Group - are structurally undervalued by investors, who benefit from material capital returns via dividends and/or buybacks,’ said McGinnis.

‘We raise our fair value... to 750p, circa 40% upside, at which level Polar would still only be trading on 14 times March 2021 earnings per share and prospective dividend yield of 4.4%.’

[mach100] 12/10/2020 19:24

Sometimes I ask myself should I buy polar and other times I compeletely reject it.

[zho] 08/10/2020 07:42

"Polar Capital reports that as at 30 September 2020 its AuM were GBP16.4bn compared to GBP12.2bn at the end of March 2020, an increase of 34% over the period. During the period, AuM increased by GBP4.2bn which comprised net subscriptions of GBP907m offset by outflows from a previously reported fund closure of GBP301m and an increase of GBP3,588m related to market movement and fund performance."

Net perfomance fee of £14.4m, up from £4.2m YOY, and well above the £8.8m for the whole of 2019/2020

Not too shabby.

[diviincomesearch] 07/10/2020 21:20

Yes I’d like it to pick up the pace a bit more and EM stars.

More than a quarter of a billion in AUM up in the open ended funds from August to end of September, based on the latest fact sheets.

Biotech and the technology fund the prime ones for most of that.

U.K. opps and North America funds still bleeding and anything with more of a value tilt is still getting clobbered, at the moment it’s tough to see when that will change.

Hopeful of a better year of performance fees the way things are going with the technology fund/IT and Biotech helping on that front.

[riverman77] 03/10/2020 09:04

The main tech fund is soft closed, but there is a artificial intelligence fund (effectively a tech fund) which is doing well and seeing good inflows.

[diviincomesearch] 03/10/2020 08:06

Yes- at least the company is relatively easy to understand.

I think the only problem at the moment is the value strategies are really suffering- U.K. opportunities fund has continued to shed millions going by the trustnet figures again this month.

So Japan Value, North American and U.K. opportunities have had heavy outflows.

Meanwhile the tech fund and biotech fund have soft closed so that will reduce the prospect of inflows.

Still a very cheap valued company and I hope there is continued progress on the EM stars fund.

[malcontent] 02/10/2020 22:12

super quiet board this one...

I am slowly accumulating this one

[diviincomesearch] 08/9/2020 22:54

Strong recovery for this one. August was a good one for the markets- I felt the technology fund would be a good one for continued inflows this year but hard to believe its now £5.5bn alone. Along with the trust that’s almost £8.5bn of total assets. Clearly other areas need to pull their weight given it’s now soft closed but nice to see the North American and Japan Value strategies stopped the rot.

Emerging market stars growing nicely.

Company has oodles of cash on the balance sheet.

[qvg] 09/8/2020 08:27

Tomps, yes I saw the interview too. Good that he is so positive about Polar. But I was not sure about his credentials as an investor

[tomps2] 07/8/2020 10:25

piworld interview with Richard Leonard covers POLR at 32:17.

[petewy] 22/6/2020 19:27

Thanks Graham

[grahamburn] 22/6/2020 17:16

So.... they've corrected the omission with their RNS at 4.04pm.

Payment date is 31 July.