Liontrust - a growing cub.....

Liontrust: This group has enjoyed great momentum in recent years. The latest FUM was £3.8bn, with the market capitalisation at £97m. They have announced that they have won a £320m institutional UK equity income mandate which was lost by Miton Group recently, being run on behalf of SWIP (now owned by Aberdeen Asset Management). The UK equity income team is led by Stephen Bailey, whilst the UK equity team is led by Anthony Cross and on the multi-manager side they employ John Husselbee and Paul Kim.  So, with a good fund factory in place and some good performance the future looks rosy for the group. For the year to March 2015 forecast eps could brush 20p, meaning that at 215p, the PE is 10.8x. Meanwhile the dividend is on course for around 4p, giving a yield of 1.9%, but this is growing at a clip (having been 1p in the year to March 2013). With eps set to grow well and a dividend cover of 5x, dividend growth is set to be very good. I know that with equity markets in upheaval it is a brave man who buys an asset manager, but fortune supposedly favours the brave. The other risk is an unexpected upheaval in the fund manager ranks, but all seems to be a stable ship at present. For income growth investors this looks to be a smaller market capitalisation stock worthy of a second look. One other small cloud to be aware of is that the Chief Executive John Ions has been off-loading stock recently, although he still has £2m and options so still has plenty of skin in the game.  (Neil Cumming, 16th October)

These comments are not a personal recommendation to deal. Any investments can fall as well as rise in value, so you could get back less than you invest. I may have a financial interest in some of the stocks written about.

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