MA Financial shares jump on earnings upgrade

Shares in MA Financial surged after the asset manager ramped up its earnings guidance for the second time in as many months.

MA Financial shares rose after the asset manager upped its earnings guidance. Picture: AAP

MA Financial shares jumped as much as 9 per cent on Wednesday after the asset manager ramped up its earnings guidance for the second time in as many months.

ASX-listed MA Financial, formerly Moelis Australia, boosted its guidance on the back of strong inflows in the third quarter, saying it now anticipates full-year underlying earnings per share will increase between 30 and 40 per cent on last year.

It comes after the company in August upped its guidance for earnings to jump 20 to 30 per cent through the year.

MA Financial co-CEO Julian Biggins said the latest boost was driven by both foreign and domestic flows into the business.

“We’ve had very good momentum since the second half of last year,” Mr Biggins said.

“We’re pretty conservative in terms of guidance, we don’t take it lightly and I think it’s really positive that not only the foreign flows, but also our domestic flows, are really kicking hard now.”

MA Financial’s assets under management rose to $6.5bn by the end of September, up from $6.1bn at the end of June.

Its net fund inflows of $384m in the quarter marked a turnaround from the $14m in net outflows over the same quarter in 2020, with domestic inflows hitting a record $190m over the three-month period compared to the $154m that flowed in over the prior six months.

“Year to date we’ve raised just over $1bn out of our client base and nearly half of that is domestic, which is really pleasing to see,” Mr Biggins said.

“The domestic business would have been relatively small versus our foreign business two or three years ago, so it’s great to see that while the foreign business is growing well, the domestic side is growing even quicker.”

The asset manager settled on over $210m of real estate assets over the third quarter and is in the process of acquiring a diverse suite of office-based assets from Ascot Capital worth $115m. The contracted assets are targeted to settle before the end of the year.

It is also in due diligence on a further $145m of real estate and hospitality assets, with Mr Biggins noting the optimism around the post-lockdown outlook for its property holdings.

“We’re very optimistic. When the pubs opened last year post-Covid they traded very well. We’re in festive season now so we anticipate that the pubs will trade pretty well again this time.

“So it’s definitely a positive start and we anticipate it to be a pretty busy Christmas.”

MA Financial shares jumped as much as 9 per cent to $8.50 in intraday trade before giving up some of the gains to close the session 4.5 per cent higher at $8.14.