Mark Coombs, the billionaire founder of emerging markets fund manager Ashmore, today raised the dividend he will collect this year by £1 million to £44.3 million.
Coombs, who lives in a quiet road in Wimbledon, raised the dividend by 3% despite Ashmore’s profits slipping by 1% to £243 million in the year to June and a 3% fall in assets under management to $63.7 billion (£39.8 billion).
Coombs said: “The group achieved a satisfactory financial performance during a period of significant ongoing market volatility.”
Analysts pointed out that a large chunk of the profits came from Ashmore paying its staff lower bonuses because their funds had not performed as strongly as in the previous year. Bonuses for the group’s 157 employees dropped from £56.2 million to £49.4 million.
Coombs was upbeat on prospects: “More and more investors are seeing emerging markets debt as an alternative to fixed income in general.
“With yields in the developed world either high for a good reason or yielding next to nothing, emerging market debt looks highly attractive.”
