London staff at Ninety One cash in as funds pay dividends

AROUND 400 London staff of Ninety One are to take a chunky share of a windfall of around £15 million as the Anglo-South African fund manager pays its first ever dividend.

In the half year profits rose 3% to £95 million. The maiden divided of 5.9p is worth £54.5 million in total. Staff around the world own 22% of the stock.

The company has just moved to new offices at 55 Gresham Street in the City, though it remains largely unoccupied at the moment.

In the half year assets grew 15% to £119 billion, with chief executive Hendrik du Toit saying the pandemic offers good opportunities for old fashioned stock pickers to come good.

He also thinks London is far more open for business than arch rival New York, which he says remains a ghost town in the face of Covid-19.

Du Toit says dividend payments by companies that can afford it “should not be politicised”. “If companies can pay a divi they should. We don’t want companies to hoard capital,” he said.

He said the results are “solid”, adding: “If you look where we were in March, we’re very thankful that we got here.” The office move was actually easier with most staff working from home.

The pandemic has opened up markets to a fresh breed of investor watching share prices from their sofa.

“I’m quite excited about the renewed interest in financial markets. There are lots of alpha opportunities for active fund managers, mostly driven by big stocks,” he said.

Ninety One shares moved up 4p to 234p today, leaving the business valued at £1.5 billion.

Last week he warned investors not to “get caught up in the vaccine excitement and momentum. What is important is a combination of robustness, resilience and valuation. Valuation has not disappeared. I think we have lost sense of valuation in this mad growth dash of the last few months”.