Despite recording a 25 per cent fall in wealth management revenue over the financial year, there are signs AMP Wealth has bottomed out as it reports significantly increased assets under management (AUM) and sharply decreasing outflows in its FY21 results.
Improved market conditions and reduced outflows saw total AUM for the Australian Wealth Management business increase 8 per cent to $134 billion.
Meanwhile, AMP’s strategy to focus on its North platform was similarly rewarded as inflows from external financial advisers drove the AUM increase by $9.8 billion to $61.4 billion.
The firm said it’s re-shape of aligned advice will be complete by FY22 with a base of 300-400 scaled practices, which was highlighted as a priority in its 1H21 results.
However, impairments and transformation costs that were announced in November as a one-off saw the wealth business report $48 million profit – down from $64 million in the previous financial year.
Alexis George, AMP chief executive, said the positive growth of inflows and AUM reflected the improved company culture.
“It’s important to highlight the work we have done on purpose, values and culture,” George said at an investor briefing on the results. “We’ve delivered inclusive leadership training to all employees, launched a new inclusion and diversity policy and uplifted our employee support capabilities.
“My experiences of the culture at AMP have been a positive one and I see a group of people committed to having AMP succeed.”
With its new strategies in place, the underlying FY21 loss in advice is expected to improve by 50 per cent next financial year due to the exit of employed advice, right-sizing network support costs and improving revenues.
With this improved acceleration of the advice business transformation, AMP expected to triple external financial adviser inflows over the next three years with the ambition the advice business will break even by FY24.
Cleaning the slate
AMP Limited reported a FY21 statutory net profit after tax (NPAT) loss of $252 million, compared to a $177 million profit the previous financial year, which was also attributed to the previously announced one-off impairment charges.
The impairments announced in November last year were settled at $312 million and AMP chose to write them off in this result to give a clean slate for the demerger process.
Underlying NPAT, which differs from statutory NPAT that includes one-off losses, shows a rosier picture with a reported $356 million in profit – a 52.8 per cent increase of $233 million in the previous financial year.
The performance was attributed to earnings from AMP Bank and performance fees from AMP Capital.
“A number of have been taken to reset the balance sheet ahead of the demerger this year, aligning with the revised growth strategy of the business,” James Georgeson, AMP chief financial officer said.
The demerger of the Capital Markets business is on track for completion in 1H22 and will rebrand as Collimate Capital, with an independent ASX listing expected in June.
The separation will allow both businesses to function without internal conflict as AMP Limited could continue to focus on the retail wealth market, while Collimate can focus on institutional investments.
The capital markets business delivered statutory NPAT of $154 million, an 18 per cent increase over the previous financial year which was supported by performance fees from the sale of infrastructure assets in its closed-end funds.
