The Perpetual Ltd (ASX: PPT) share price is plunging today after the financial services company reported its latest earnings covering the 2024 financial year.
Perpetual shares closed at $20.64 each yesterday but opened at $20.33 this morning. At the time of writing, the stock has fallen even further down to $19.86, down a painful 3.78% for the day thus far.
What did the company report?
Here's an outline of what Perpetual reported to investors for its 2024 financial year:
- Revenues of $1,335 million, up 32% on the prior financial year
- Underlying profit after tax of $206.1 million, up 26%
- Statutory net loss of $472.2 million, down from the $59 million net profit of FY2023
- Final dividend of 53 cents per share (50% franked) declared
Perpetual also reported that its total assets under management finished the year at $215 billion, up 1% from FY2023's total.
In terms of the company's dividend, that 53 cents per share final payment represents an 18.46% drop from both the April interim dividend and last year's final dividend, both of which were worth 65 cents per share.
What else happened in FY2024?
The sizeable statutory net loss of $472.2 million that Perpetual reported was largely driven by the $547 million impairment charge that Perpetual reported just this Monday.
As we covered at the time, this impairment was driven by outflows from two of Perpetual's subsidiaries – J O Hambro and TSW. This announcement resulted in a significant fall in the Perpetual share price this week.
That has cemented a poor performance over 2024 to date – a loss of 22.96% at the time of writing. Check it out below:
What did Perpetual's management say?
Here's some of what outgoing Perpetual CEO Rob Adams said on these results:
The financial results in Asset Management reflect our global footprint and increased scale with the full 12-months' contribution of Pendal Group this financial year. Investment performance across all boutiques has been robust, with 66%4 of strategies outperforming benchmark over the three-year period to 30 June 2024, highlighting the diversification and quality of our investment strategies and
professionals.During the year, net outflows in J O Hambro, TSW and Trillium were disappointing, impacted by the timing of several institutional client redemptions, as well as the departure of a portfolio manager in J O Hambro…
In Australia, we saw positive momentum in net flows, driven by Perpetual's Australian credit & fixed
income capabilities and improving net flows in Australian Equities…
What's next for Perpetual?
Perpetual didn't provide much forward-looking guidance today, only stating that the company is pencilling in between 2-4% growth in total expenses. This is due to expectations that its Wealth Management and Corporate Trust divisions will continue to expand.
Perpetual share price snapshot
As we touched on above, Perpetual shares have had a tough 2024 to date, with that 22.96% drop. Over the past 12 months, however, the Perpetual share price has lost a tamer 5.3%.
At the current Perpetual share price, this ASX 200 stock is trading on a dividend yield of 6.51%.
