LONDON (Reuters) -Shares in British money manager Jupiter were on track for their biggest daily gain in five years after it announced on Thursday it would buy smaller rival CCLA Investment Manager, part of a wider wave of consolidation in the fund industry.
The company also announced an update to its capital returns plans for shareholders, saying it would return half of its performance fee-related revenue to investors this year in the form of a special dividend or share buyback, or both.
Jupiter said the updated payouts were in addition to its existing ordinary dividend and share buyback plans.
Shares in Jupiter were last up 12%, set for their biggest daily increase since March 2020.
Jupiter said it had agreed to buy CCLA for 100 million pounds ($136 million), adding 15 billion pounds of assets under management from the specialist firm, which serves clients including charities, religious institutions and local councils.
The company said the takeover helped it increase scale and access a new pool of clients. It also said it expected to make cost savings of at least 16 million pounds per year by the end of 2027.
The deal is expected to close before the end of this year, Jupiter said.
Jupiter, which manages 45.3 billion pounds of client assets, has been trying to rebuild investor confidence after several years of tough trading and the departure of one of its star fund managers, Ben Whitmore.
Shares in the company are up nearly 40% this year, but remain down about 80% from their 2017 peak.
($1 = 0.7351 pounds)
(Reporting by Iain WithersEditing by Tomasz Janowski)
