Record soars on positive second quarter - UPDATE

16th Oct 2012 09:52

Record, a specialist currency manager for institutional clients, saw shares rise on Tuesday morning following a positive trading update for the second quarter to September 30th. Assets under management equivalents (AuME) when expressed in both dollars and sterling increased to $32.5bn (June 30th 2011: $29.9bn), with the number of clients increasing to 43 from 40.During the quarter to September 30th, fee rates for all products remained broadly unchanged from the previous quarter.Chief Executive James Wood-Collins, commenting on trading, said "Overall AuME increased during the period due to the commencement of new passive hedging mandates. AuME has also increased over the first six months of the financial year, with Passive Hedging having grown by 11%."As we had anticipated, we have seen a notable increase in the level of Requests for Proposals towards the end of the quarter, particularly for Passive Hedging in Switzerland. We are hopeful that we will be successful in securing additional mandates from these proposals."Whilst the UK continues to be a competitive market with lower levels of activity, we continue to see encouraging engagement with prospective clients and investment consultants in North America."We remain confident that further progress can be made in acquiring new business during the second half of the financial year."Record will announce its half-year results on 16th November and its third-quarter trading update on 18th January 2013.Broker commentJP Morgan Cazanove has an "Overweight" rating on Record and has raised its target price for the stock to 37p from 32p. Analyst Rae Maile comments: "The company remains solidly profitable and cash generative, and retains its strong balance sheet. The process of rebuilding continues, but is not, in our view, discounted by the current share price."CM