The Magellan Financial Group Ltd (ASX: MFG) share price is under the spotlight after reporting its funds under management (FUM) for February 2024.
Magellan is a fund manager that offers funds focused on three main areas: global shares, infrastructure shares and Australian shares.
Promising February FUM update
The fund manager reported that its total FUM increased by around $900 million over the month to $37.2 billion.
It seems that the rise came about because of share markets going up. In February, it experienced net outflows of $0.2 billion, which included net retail outflows of $0.1 billion and net institutional outflows of $0.1 billion.
While outflows aren’t ideal, this represents one of the smallest outflow months for the last few years.
Share markets have tended to go up over time, so if Magellan is able to limit FUM outflows to a small amount, its FUM can increase as the underlying investments go up in value faster than the outflows.
During the month, Magellan saw the retail FUM rise by $700 million to $17.7 billion and the institutional FUM increased $200 million to $19.5 billion.
Turning to the individual strategies, global shares saw FUM rise $900 million to $16.4 billion, infrastructure FUM dropped $100 million to $15.5 billion and Australian shares increased $100 million to $5.3 billion.
What does this mean for the Magellan share price?
Rising FUM is a completely different situation to falling FUM for a fund manager.
The market clearly likes it because the Magellan share price is up more than 4%.
Investors have been pricing Magellan as though it’s on a downhill slope forever. But, its main global shares funds, such as Magellan Global Fund (ASX: MGF), are now able to show outperformance, as opposed to underperformance. Investors are more likely to leave their funds within Magellan if it’s outperforming.
The Magellan Global Fund has outperformed over the past month, three months, six months and one year.
If it can starting growing its FUM, on average, over the long-term, from here then the Magellan share price could rise too, and the dividends could stabilise.
It’s early days, and fund managers that charge high management fees still face headwinds, but this update is promising for the company.
