(Reuters) -Australian wealth manager AMP Ltd posted a 57% jump in first-half underlying profit on Thursday, helped by stronger AMP Bank earnings and investment income from Group Office division, and held back on its interim dividend.
AMP said it would review the payment of dividends, as well as its capital management strategy, after completing the demerger of AMP Capital’s Private Markets business, slated in the first half of 2022.
The company has been trying to repair its reputation since 2018, when a public financial sector inquiry exposed systemic wrongdoing, including charging customers for services it did not provide and misleading regulators.
The embattled wealth manager added it was on-track to deliver A$300 million ($221.22 million) of annual run-rate cost savings by fiscal 2022.
“Getting our demerger done will be a core priority. We’ve set out a clear timeline to establish and separate the AMP Capital Private Markets business this year,” Chief Executive Officer Alexis George said in a statement.
Underlying net profit after tax from retained businesses was A$181 million for the half-year, while the company’s Australian wealth-management unit reported net cash outflows of A$2.7 billion, down from the A$4 billion reported last year.
($1 = 1.3569 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Soumyajit Saha and Arundhati Dutta in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)
