US – US-Anglo fund firm Amvescap, the holding company for AIM and Invesco, has reported a 33% fall in pre-tax profit for 2002.

For the year ended December 31 2002, pre-tax profits fell to 320.9 million pounds (486.3 million euros) from 477.9 million pounds (724.2 million euros) in 2001.

Funds under management declined to 332.6 billion dollars at the end of 2002, from 397.9 billion dollars at the end of 2001. Fifty-seven billion dollars of the 2002 figure were invested in money market funds, down from 63.6 billion dollars at the end of 2001.

The report says that 50% of the total assets was invested in equity securities, and 50% in fixed income and other securities. The equity securities were invested: 36% in growth stocks; 38% in core stocks; and 26% in value stocks.

Total funds under management as of end 2002 are split among the Amvescap subsidiaries as follows:

Managed Products 166.1 billion dollars
Invesco Institutional 102.9 billion dollars
Invesco Global 55.3 billion dollars
Private Wealth Mgmt. 8.3 billion dollars

Falls in profit for the above group were most significant for Invesco Global which saw a decline in profits of over 50%. Profits for the year ended December 2002 were 33.9 billion dollars from 76.4 billion dollars for 2001. Invesco Institutional saw its profits fall to 49.3 billion dollars from 53.5 billion dollars.

Executive chairman Charles Brady said: “The worst bear market in over 65 years has badly eroded investor and business confidence, and it will understandably take some time to restore this confidence after the markets have stabilised.”

Reuters quoted chief financial officer Bob McCullough as saying that the company’s cost-cutting programme could mean more job cuts than the initial planned 500.

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