Polar’s final quarter of FY23 (to 31 Mar 23) was a strong one, with AUM up by £0.75bn (+4%) to £19.2bn, driven mostly by an investment performance contribution of +£1.2bn (+6% of opening AUM). Net flows of -£410m were recorded but these were almost all down to profit taking from the Global Insurance fund (-£373m) which has delivered significant outperformance.
Year-end AUM has exceeded our previous forecast of £18.3bn. While the Q4 uptick in AUM doesn’t have a big impact on our FY23 financial forecasts, it does bump up our FY24 forecasts and our fundamental valuation increases to 625p, 36% above the current share price. Polar’s PER of 9.1 is also 40% below the 15.2 median of a UK-listed asset manager peer group.
