Franklin Resources, the holding company for California-based asset manager Franklin Templeton, reported second-quarter earnings that were flat on the year before, but said investor inflows had began to return.
The results reflect a quarter in which asset managers have been buoyed by rising stock markets, but whose underlying businesses have largely been treading water compared with a year ago.
The second largest listed US asset manager by market capitalisation reported net income of $503m in the three months to the end of March, the same amount of profits as it made in the period last year.
However the group, which manages $730bn of predominantly mutual fund assets, said that it saw $6bn of net inflows during the quarter, spread across its stock, bond and hybrid investment products, a reversal of the $15.6bn of outflows during the previous three months.
As with peers, sales growth of 3 per cent on the year before, to $1.75bn, was offset by operating expenses growing at a faster pace, up 6 per cent to $1.12bn for the quarter. Franklin’s operating margin of 34.3 oer cent was the lowest rate in more than a year.
Franklin pointed to its persistent strong investment performance overall. On a 10-year basis the group has the best overall record of any mutual fund provider, with 90 per cent of its funds performing better than average during the period.
Shares were down 2 per cent at the open in New York, to $123.30, after a strong run since the start of the year that has left Franklin up more than 28 per cent for the year so far.