The fund management firm Jupiter has posted pre-tax profits of £14.6million for the first half of 2010, two months after becoming a listed company.

Jupiter was listed on the London Stock Exchange on 21 June 2010, and its first half results for 2010 show a marked improvement on the same period in 2009 when the firm recorded a £6.5million loss.

Chairman Jamie Dundas said: “We have had a good start to 2010 with continuing momentum from positive net sales over the first half of the year and investment outperformance for our clients.”

Assets under management at Jupiter increased two per cent to £19.8billion, with a net inflow to funds of £814million; net management fees increased by 30 per cent.

The firm said the initial public offering (IPO) on the stock market had allowed it to substantially reduce its debt, with the half-year report also showing a gain from part disposal of its stake in the Cofunds investment platform.

The performance of funds continued to be high, the report said, with 59 per cent of mutual funds (a managed, collective investment fund) above the benchmark performance over a three year period. The past six months has also seen an improvement in one year performance in these funds, with 71 per cent above the median average.

Chief executive Edward Bonham Carter (pictured) said: “We have seen continued market volatility this year with the FTSE 100 seeing closing levels between 4,806 and 5,825 in the first half, eventually falling 9 per cent across the period as concerns over European sovereign debt and GDP growth stalled the recovery from the lows of 2009.”

Bonham Carter said, while ‘greater volatility’ was to be expected, equities continued to look more attractive than other asset classes, such as property and cash.

He predicted that fund managers with a strong reputation for stock picking had the potential to outperform equity indices, ‘just as many did throughout the last 10 years’.

© Fair Investment Company Ltd