Long-suffering investors of Magellan Financial Group Ltd (ASX: MFG) are used to seeing negative funds under management (FUM) updates for the company.
After a dramatic fall from grace over the past few years, Magellan has struggled to keep investors' money in-house. Having once managed over $100 billion in FUM, last month we covered how funds under management had slumped yet again to $34.3 billion. At the end of August, the company had $39 billion on its books.
But in some good news today, Magellan's latest FUM figures show a potential turnaround.
It might be behind the bounce we are seeing in the Magellan share price during this Wednesday's trading. At present, Magellan shares are up 2.18% at $7.72 each.
Why are Magellan shares bouncing higher on Wednesday?
So over November, the company's FUM increased, a turnaround of the seemingly relentless drops that Magellan has had to report every month for a long time.
Coming off reporting a total FUM of $34.3 billion on 31 October, Magellan informed investors today that its FUM had risen over November by 2.62% to $35.2 billion.
That was built on retail funds rising from $16.1 billion to $16.7 billion, and institutional capital increasing from $18.2 billion to $18.5 billion.
The company's Australian equities and infrastructure equities divisions both saw rises. Australian equities rose from $4.3 billion to $4.7 billion, while infrastructure funds lifted from $14.8 billion to $15.5 billion.
However, the company's global equities division fell, dropping from $15.2 billion to around $15 billion over the month just gone.
It's not all good news for Magellan though. The fund manager also revealed that it still experienced a net outflow of capital over the month of $1 billion. $300 million of that came from retail investors pulling their money, with the other $700 million coming from institutional investors.
This tells us that Magellan's FUM growth almost certainly came from the value of its investing portfolios appreciating.
Even so, this news will no doubt be appreciated by those with an interest in the Magellan share price today.
