LONDON (Reuters) - Intermediate Capital Group plc (L:ICP) said on Tuesday it had raised a record amount of money across its products to boost third party assets under management by 8 percent to 10.7 billion euros (8.72 billion pounds).
The company, a specialist asset manager that provides mezzanine finance, private debt, leveraged credit and minority equity, said a record period of realisations during the period had left total assets under management flat at 13.0 billion euros.
Pretax profit in the year to end-March 2014, meanwhile, was up 11 percent to 158.7 million pounds from 142.6 million pounds.
ICG said in a statement that it would pay a final dividend of 14.4 pence per share to bring its total dividend for the year to 21.0 pence, a rise of 5 percent. It also announced a share buyback of up to 100 million pounds.
"There is no doubt that investor interest in credit strategies is increasing," said ICG's chief executive, Christophe Evain, in a statement. "This is due to more positive economic sentiment around the world combined with the need to diversify sources of yield in portfolios and the demand for alternative sources of finance in the new lending landscape. In light of this market we see the momentum in growing our business continuing".
(Reporting by Simon Jessop, editing by Pamela Barbaglia)