Man Group (LON:EMG) reported record assets under management, strong investment performance and higher earnings for the first half of 2026, as client demand rose across its alternatives and long-only offerings.
Chief Executive Officer Robyn Grew said the firm ended the period with broad-based investment gains, net inflows across all four product categories and growth in earnings. The results reflected multi-year efforts to diversify the business, she said, amid markets shaped by geopolitical uncertainty, concentrated equity returns tied to artificial intelligence and elevated bond yields.
Investment performance and client flows
Grew said asset-weighted investment performance was 0.4% ahead of comparable peer strategies. In liquid alternatives, the firm’s 1783 multi-strategy offering returned 7.9% in the first half, while Man Alternative Risk Premia returned 4.6% and exceeded $15 billion in assets. AHL Alpha, its traditional trend-following program, returned 7.1%, while AHL Evolution returned negative 3.7%.
Long-only strategies also outperformed, according to the company. Numeric Emerging Markets Core was ahead of its benchmark by 4.8% per year over the past three years, Grew said, while Man Japan CoreAlpha faced a more difficult environment for value investing in Japan. Liquid-credit strategies exceeded their benchmarks, she added.
The company generated $37 billion of gross flows during the half, including $21 billion from institutional clients and $16 billion from wealth channels. It now serves 792 institutional clients. Grew said demand was particularly strong in long-only strategies and customized liquid-alternatives solutions.
- Alternatives AUM totaled $110.5 billion, including $92.9 billion in liquid alternatives.
- Long-only AUM rose to $143.1 billion, aided by $6.3 billion of net inflows and $15 billion of investment performance and positive beta.
- Uncalled committed capital was $4.9 billion at period-end.
Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer Antoine Forterre said liquid alternatives returned to net inflows in the second quarter after outflows in the first quarter. Demand extended beyond customized solutions to risk-premia products and equity and credit long-short hedge fund strategies, he said.
Revenue, profit and shareholder returns
Core net revenue increased to $853 million. Net management fees rose 21% year over year to $627 million, while core performance fees more than tripled from the first half of 2025 to $207 million. The company also generated $80 million of investment gains from its seed book.
Core profit before tax rose to $297 million, producing a 35% core profit-before-tax margin, within the company’s indicated 30% to 40% annual range. Core management-fee profit before tax increased 43% to $186 million, while core management-fee earnings per share rose 46% to a record half-year level of $0.124.
Performance fees included $84 million from 1783 and contributions from opportunistic-credit strategies managed by the Bardin Hill team. Performance-fee-eligible AUM rose to $69.2 billion, with $53.3 billion above high-water marks at the end of June, compared with $36.6 billion at the start of the year.
Forterre said the company had accrued roughly $290 million of performance fees as of July 24 that were due to crystallize in the second half, though the ultimate amount would fluctuate.
The board declared an interim dividend of $0.057 per share, equal to one-third of the full-year 2025 dividend and in line with company guidance. Man Group had net tangible assets of $758 million at the end of June, including $152 million of available cash and cash equivalents. It returned $114 million to shareholders in the first half through dividends and buybacks, while a $50 million share repurchase program announced in May remained in progress.
Credit, North America and technology initiatives
Grew said Man Group’s credit platform now manages more than $60 billion across public and private markets. The firm’s global high-yield and investment-grade strategies were in the top decile of their peer groups, she said.
In private credit, Man Direct Lending’s covenant default rate over the previous 12 months was 1.4%, compared with an industry rate of 5.4%, according to Grew. Its payment-in-kind rate was approximately 4%, roughly half the business-development-company peer average. The firm’s opportunistic-credit strategy delivered an annualized return of 35.7% during the first half, she said.
The company also completed the first close of a new opportunistic-credit fund at a size greater than the final closes of its two predecessors. It plans to bring its U.S. private-credit teams together in New York to support collaboration across direct lending, opportunistic credit, U.S. residential debt and collateralized loan obligations.
North American gross flows were $12.9 billion during the half, nearly matching the amount raised in the region during all of 2024, Grew said. AUM from North American clients has grown at more than 18% annually since the end of 2021. The company cited demand from institutions including endowments, annuities, pension funds, insurers and state plans, as well as growing wealth-channel engagement through active exchange-traded funds.
On artificial intelligence, Grew said 96% of the firm’s employees use AI tools daily. She characterized AI as a means to expand employee capabilities rather than reduce headcount, citing examples ranging from investment research to faster client onboarding. Forterre said Man Group’s 30% to 40% margin guidance already includes its investments in AI.
About Man Group (LON:EMG)
With a heritage in aiming to deliver attractive performance and tailored client solutions, Man Group is a highly active investment manager, powered by cutting edge investment technology. As a manager of millions of savers’ capital, we have a responsibility as stewards of those investments to create a better, more sustainable future for investors and society. Our quantitative expertise and data-driven culture means we believe Man Group is in a unique position to uncover the opportunities of the future.
Our five investment management businesses leverage our robust infrastructure to provide a diverse range of strategies across investment approaches, styles and asset classes.
We continuously invest in talent, technology and research as we strive to deliver the best results for our clients.
