Schroders profit before tax down by 2.3%
Schroders (LON:SDR) confirmed on Thursday that its pre-tax profit fell by 2.3% in 2020, while its assets under management soared to a record high.
The asset management company posted a profit before tax of £610.5m in 2020, down from £624.6m in 2019.
The FTSE 100 company now manages assets worth £574.4bn, up from 15% the year before.
The board announced a final dividend of 79p per share, bringing the full-year payment to 114p -unchanged from the previous two years.
Schroders’ share price was down by 2.28% at early morning trading on Thursday to 3,510p per share. The company’s share price is up year-to-date by 95p from 3,415p.
Peter Harrison, chief executive at Schroders, commented on the company’s results:
“The strength of our investment performance showcases the benefits of active investment management and our ability to deliver good outcomes for our clients. I would like to thank our employees for their hard work and ongoing dedication to our clients which helped us to deliver a strong financial performance in 2020 despite the challenging environment,” said Harrison.
“Assets under management increased 15% to reach a record high of £574.4 billion. We generated net inflows of £42.5 billion with strong demand in our Private Assets, Wealth Management and Solutions businesses. These higher growth areas now account for 54% of our assets under management. Our geographic diversification continued with our US business reaching a milestone of more than $100 billion of assets under management. We also continued to expand in Asia through our growing network of partnerships which contributed strongly to the Group in 2020.”
“I am proud of our continued progress in building a leading position in sustainability and impact investing. We now incorporate ESG factors into decision-making across our investment range. This fulfils a commitment we made in 2019. De-carbonisation is a critical issue. We are focused on supporting companies in their transition to net zero.”