LONDON (HedgeWorld.com)–Man Group plc* sold US$5.8 billion in funds in the six months through Sept. 30, 2003, compared to US$2 billion over the same period in 2002. The firm's assets under management are estimated at US$32.5 billion as of Oct. 31.
Net management fee income was up 53% for the past two quarters. Performance fee income, however, was slightly down. Man chief executive Stanley Fink said the main reason for stagnating performance fee income was the managed futures program AHL catching up with its high watermark after losing ground the previous period.
Managers who have agreed to a high watermark do not charge for performance while they get back to a past high NAV .
RMF, Man's Swiss-based fund of funds operation, did fairly well in these six months, earning 5.4% for institutional investors. Its assets grew to US$12.8 billion.
Difficult Transition
But Chicago-based fund of funds Glenwood, with US$5 billion in assets, had lackluster performance during this time, returning 2.7% to institutional investors. Mr. Fink said that the impending transition at Glenwood, which is losing the top executives who started the business, was partly to blame for this underperformance.
"One of the reasons we bought RMF was that we felt Glenwood did have a difficult transition to make," explained Mr. Fink. "It was a bit of a mom-and-pop store when we bought it."
Glenwood Founder Frank Meyer and Vice President David Gordon are leaving the firm at the end of this year. Some members of the original team have already left, such as Ross Laser, who departed some six months ago. John Rowsell is taking over the reins, assisted by Glenwood Chief Operating Officer Bob Tucker, Mr. Fink said.
