UPDATE 1-Australia's Perpetual year profit down 29 pct

Tue Aug 19, 2008 8:06pm EDT
 
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(Adds CEO comment, details, analysts' estimate)

SYDNEY, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Perpetual Ltd (PPT.AX), an Australian fund manager, on Wednesday missed analysts' forecasts with a 29 percent fall in full-year net profit, hurt by volatile stock markets.

Perpetual reported net profit of A$128.8 million ($112 million) for the financial year ended June. Nine analysts had on average forecast net profit for the period to be A$134.21 million.

Operating profit was down 8 percent at A$133.5 million.

"Our environment has a defining influence on the performance of our business and we were clearly not immune to these market forces in 2008," CEO David Deverall said in a statement.

Perpetual paid a final dividend of 141 cents, bringing its total dividend for the year to 330 cents.

The company warned in May its earnings could drop as much as 10.5 percent in fiscal 2008, taking a hit from volatile equity markets.

As of 30 June 2008, the company's funds under management were A$30.3 billion, down A$8.8 billion on the previous financial year, due to falling values in equity and debt markets, and outflows from Perpetual's credit and fixed interest and Australian equities institutional businesses. (Reporting by Mette Fraende)

 

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