Financial services firm AMP has reported a full-year loss of $252 million for 2021 but the company and its newish CEO, Alexis George wants the market to look elsewhere.
In statements with the 2021 results, the CEO pointed to the progress made on building the “new AMP” and unveiled fresh branding for the private markets business.
AMP’s full-year statutory loss swung from the prior year’s profit of $177 million and was largely driven by impairment charges and non-cash writedowns announced last year.
The fact that there were no real surprises in the full year results saw the shares rise nearly 6% to a still weak $1.07 yesterday.
Ms George said the plans to spin off and separately list AMP’s private markets business had progressed well and on Thursday announced the new entity’s brand name, Collimate Capital, which will soon start being rolled out.
“We have good momentum in the transformation of AMP, repositioning our core capabilities to take advantage of the opportunities ahead of us, as we progress towards and beyond demerger as a simpler and purpose-led business,” Ms George said.
Ms George said the group’s underlying results were strong, pointing to AMP Bank’s profits rising by 38% over the year to $153 million which was driven by technology investments that contributed to higher mortgage growth.
AMP also reported its Australian wealth assets under management rose 8% cent to $134 billion, and its North platform, a digital investment platform used by financial advisers, saw inflows increase by 18% to $1.3 billion.
“We have set a clear strategy to drive two simpler and more efficient businesses, well placed to compete, grow and deliver value in a highly dynamic market,” Ms George said.
“We’ve achieved a solid underlying profit result, which shows the strength of our Bank, growth of the North platform with increased inflows from external financial advisers, and the significant cost savings achieved from across the business, in line with our targets.”
No dividend again from the company. It last made a payout to shareholders in 2019.
