Following a disastrous first quarter a year ago, T. Rowe Price Group Inc. announced Friday that its quarterly profits more than tripled.
The Baltimore-based company said that an increase in assets under management and investment-advisory fees boosted earning. It reported that earnings rose to $153 million, or 57 cents a share, up from $48.2 million, or 19 cents a share, a year earlier.
During the quarter, T. Rowe [TROW] reported net investment gains of $5.3 million, compared with a loss a year earlier of $36 million. A year ago, T. Rowe was forced to make $35.6 million in write-downs related to investments in its proprietary mutual funds as a result of investment losses because its bread-and-butter equity funds were hampered by difficult market conditions. Though conditions have stabilized, analysts said most of the inflows continue to go to bond funds.
Despite this, T. Rowe’s revenue rose 44% to $557.1 million as investment advisory fees increased 54%. Net revenue rose 45% to $556.2 million.
Analysts expected earnings of 59 cents per share on net revenue of $574 million.
Assets under management rose 55.9% from a year earlier and 7.1% from the end of the previous quarter to $419 billion. The company recorded net cash inflows of $10.3 billion, up from $4.5 billion a year earlier.
The results were in line with those at competing fund companies that also released their earnings this week.
