I suspect trading tomorrow will probably answer this conundrum, but I know there are some far wiser owls than me that contribute to this bb & I would be interested in their opinions.

My question is this: the chart below looks to me like a pullback of the uptrend (ie when it went north through 14.00) however I am unsure as it has now broken down through 14.00 whether this is trending up or down :-(

So what do you think - up or down, or should I just flip a coin :-)) ?

Cheers harry i caught the bus

Stay on till my stop and you'll be rich!

HSBC note out today:
"The two material headwinds seem to have now reduced materially…
a)Reduced dependence on guaranteed funds: Given the intervention of policymakers in financial markets, we would expect AHL to struggle to deliver a good performance near term. However, given that AUM in high margin guaranteed product have reduced significantly, it will account for only 10% of group net management fee revenues in FY’14e compared to c.30% in H1’12.
b)Pressure on revenue margins: revenue margins across the product categories were expected to decline due to higher proportion of money coming from institutional investors. However, now we believe that other than AHL open ended product, revenue margins have stabilized or trending slightly upwards given the pickup in demand from retail investors.
Cost savings: Management is taking out costs from the business faster than its guidance, something we expect to continue in FY’14e. Rundown of unamortised deferrals from USD 54m at Dec’12 to USD 24m at Dec’13 is likely to help the reduction in staff costs further.
Back to inflow territory: With the headwinds from AHL reducing and sentiment towards Europe improving, Man has started to receive net inflows. After 8 consistent quarters of outflows till Q2’13, Man has reported net inflows of USD 0.7bn and USD 0.7bn in Q3’13 and Q4’13 respectively. Management has also launched a number of new products which have helped develop a positive flow momentum.
Capital return: As the fixed cost base continues to run down and the capital tied up in guaranteed products frees up, the regulatory capital requirements will reduce further. This is likely to increase the surplus capital position enabling management to distribute further capital to shareholders. We estimate that Man can deliver c.8% capital return in FY’14e, with 6% in the form of normal dividends and additional 2% via special divi / buybacks.
We upgrade to OW(V): We increase our FY’14e EPS by 48.2% due to recovery in flows and faster than expected cost saves. We increase our TP to 125p (previously 82p) and upgrade to OW(V). Excluding surplus capital, shares are trading at a PE of 9.5x for FY14e earnings."

Ex-divi wed 23rd Apr (3.19p)

Interim Management Statement

Key points

· Funds under management (FUM) as at 31 March 2014 of $55.0 billion (31 December 2013: $54.1 billion)
· Net inflows in the quarter of $2.0 billion, comprising sales of $6.5 billion and redemptions of $4.5 billion with net inflows into GLG alternatives and long only funds being partially offset by net outflows from FRM funds and guaranteed products
· Overall investment movement of negative $0.7 billion in the quarter:
o AHL Diversified programme was down 2.2% in the quarter which was the main driver of the negative investment movement of $0.3 billion in Quant alternatives strategies
o Performance in GLG alternative strategies was flat overall with positive performance in credit strategies being offset by negative performance in equity and macro strategies
o Performance at FRM was positive overall which increased FUM by $0.1 billion in the quarter. FRM Diversified strategies were up 0.5% in the quarter
o The majority of GLG Long only strategies had negative investment performance in the quarter. Japan CoreAlpha strategy was down 5.9% which contributed to the majority of the negative investment movement of $0.5 billion
· FX movements of positive $0.3 billion in the quarter, driven by the weakening of the US dollar against the the Japanese Yen
· Other negative movements of $0.7 billion driven by guaranteed product degears of $0.3 billion and product maturities and other movements of $0.4 billion
· Completed $68 million of the $115 million share repurchase programme announced on 6 March 2014 equating to 40 million shares

Comment on press speculation
Man Group plc notes the recent press speculation and confirms that it is in discussions concerning the possible acquisition of Numeric Holdings LLC. These discussions are ongoing and may or may not lead to a transaction.

Further announcements will be made if and when appropriate.

Panmure Gordon note:
"Following a press leak Man Group has confirmed it is in talks to acquire Numeric Holding, a Boston based fund manager with $14bn of AUM which is being sold by TA Holdings. If the revenue yield was 1% and it made 30% operating margin this would represent £40M of profit enhancement.

Estimates Our estimates are circa 20% ahead of consensus at £290m current year, which are assuming a £155m performance fee. It seems this could add 20% to the earning potential of Man Group.

Valuation Man group trades at 4.8% of AUM. The lowly PE of 11X and yield of 4.8% underline the high yielding and cash generative nature of Man Group’s AUM. Man Group had excess capital of $1bn at Dec 13 so this would be paid for in cash.

Conclusion Acquiring its way out of a tight corner is the right thing to do. This could mark the turning point. Maintain BUY."

Pine Grove, a US-based credit-focused fund of fund manager, will add to Man Group's fund of hedge funds business in the US, and further diversify its product offering
London and New York, 9th June 2014 - Man Group plc ("Man Group") has agreed to acquire Pine Grove Asset Management LLC ("Pine Grove"), a US-based fund of hedge fund manager specializing in the management of credit-focused hedge fund portfolios with approximately $1.0 billion of assets under management. The transaction is subject to customary closing requirements and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2014. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Pine Grove is a credit-focused fund of hedge fund manager, founded in 1994, with offices in Summit, NJ and New York City. The firm is employee-owned, with senior investment professionals having on average 18 years of direct investment management experience. Since inception, the firm's hedge fund selections and portfolio management have delivered attractive risk-adjusted returns across market cycles. Approximately two thirds of Pine Grove's assets are from institutional investors, primarily US-based, with the remaining third from US high net worth individuals and family offices.

Pine Grove will enhance Man Group's presence in the US and add to Man Group's fund of hedge funds business, FRM. Pine Grove will also reinforce FRM's efforts to offer clients a wide variety of investment opportunities including SEC-registered US 40 Act funds and complementary fund of hedge fund products.

ACQUISITION OF NUMERIC HOLDINGS LLC

Overview
Man Group plc ("Man") announces that it has entered into a conditional agreement to acquire Numeric Holdings LLC ("Numeric") (the "Acquisition").

Numeric is a privately-owned, Boston-based quantitative equity manager with $14.7 billion of funds under management as at 31 May 2014.

Founded in 1989, Numeric has an attractive and established investment track record across a range of long only and long-short, fundamentally based quantitative strategies. Based on annualised returns, over 95% of Numeric's current strategies have historically outperformed their selected benchmark over 1, 3 and 5 years(1). 100% of Numeric's long only strategies covered by eVestment rank in the top quartile of their respective peer groups over 1, 3 and 5 years(1).

Numeric's business has seen substantial growth in recent years, with funds under management increasing from $7.6 billion at the end of 2012 to $14.7 billion as at 31 May 2014. Numeric generated EBITDA of $47 million for the year ended 31 December 2013.

Under the terms of the Acquisition, Man will pay $219 million in cash at completion, with up to $275 million of further consideration payable to a broad group of the Numeric management team and employees ("Numeric Management") following the fifth anniversary of completion under an option arrangement, dependent on the run rate profitability of the business. The regulatory capital usage associated with the Acquisition is expected to be approximately $325 million.

RBC note today (Summary):
"Conclusion: This morning we indicated that the Numeric transaction “allows Man to diversify away from underperforming products (such as AHL), and gives Man access to US distribution. We believe that both of these are positives.” We also indicated our view that the purchase price “is very fair to Man Group shareholders, and that the acquisition structure adequately aligns Numeric’s management interests with Man Group shareholders.” Post the call, we retain these views.
The acquisition of Numeric is not about synergies (management has admitted that they expect no synergies), it is all about diversification and expansion into the US. The acquisition takes away $325 million in surplus capital (approximately 11p per share, assuming 1.78 billion fully diluted shares and an Fx rate of 1.700), but adds – at least -$30 million in run-rate management fee EBITDA (10p per share assuming a 10x EBITDA multiple, 1.78 billion fully diluted shares and an Fx rate of 1.700), performance fee potential (we believe another $20 million is likely, or 3p per share assuming a 5x EBITDA multiple, 1.78 fully diluted shares and an Fx rate of 1.700) and immediate access to US distribution (hard to put a value on, but if Man is able to sell its existing product more strongly into the US, the result in flows could be substantial). In our opinion, the deal makes strategic and financial sense and the positive share price reaction is warranted."

Citigroup Neutral 105.10 105.10 88.00 102.00 Upgrades

StockMarketWire.com
Citigroup has upgraded its recommendation on Man Group (LON:EMG) to "neutral" from "sell" after updating its estimates to reflect yesterday's announcement that the company has agreed to purchase Numeric. Numeric is a privately owned, Boston-based, quantitative equity manager. Analysts have upped their target price to 102 pence per share from 88 pence. Earnings per share estimates have been increased by 22 per cent for fiscal year 2015. However, the broker stated that its pre-deal concerns remain. Citi said: "Numeric reduces Man's reliance on GLG for fund flows, and extra earnings raise our target price: so we upgrade to Neutral. But we remain concerned that recent poor GLG fund performance could reduce future GLG flows, perhaps even leading to net outflows.
Interestingly, both Numis and Espirito Santo Investment Bank both reaffirmed "sell" rating in separate notes to clients, yesterday. ESIB said: "We retain doubts around Man's ability to maintain its margins as the flow dynamic within the business evolves. However, this morning's [yesterday's] use of surplus capital appears to us to be sensible."

On the move again.

Approaching the 2 year high.

nearly back in the money ..... keep going!!!

Panmure note:
"Interims results were above consensus on better than expected performance fees and inflows. Adjusted PBT rose to $148m (+10%) which was 10% above consensus. Investment performance was mixed with AHL doing better (+9% in the half) but other areas like equities disappointed. The outlook statement is cautious. The shares have rallied strongly recently and trade on 16x this year’s consensus. Given that and the lack of visibility we are reducing our recommendation to a Hold (from Buy).
For the first 6 months of 2014 adjusted PBT was $148m ($134m) versus consensus of $127m, EPS 7.1c (5.7c) versus consensus of 6c, DPS 4.0c (2.6c). Revenues totalled $452m ($568m) split between $404m management fees and $107m performance fees. Group AUM increased to $57.7bn (March $55.0bn, December 2013 $54.1bn) a little better than consensus. There were positive net inflows of $2.8bn (H13 outflows $5.0bn). On investment performance in H1: AHL Diversified +8.7% which is an improvement on the -3.1% in FY13, GLG multi-strategy -1.9% (versus +5.1% in FY13), FRM Diversified II +1.4% (FY13 +7%), and Japan CoreAlpha -1.4% (FY13 +65%) where they have $10bn in AUM. Man had surplus regulatory capital of $625m before the $345m required for acquisitions.
The outlook statement is cautious on the back of “mixed investment performance” in H1 – below expected in equities and macro but good in AHL. For FY14 the current consensus PBT is $251m with EPS of 11.9c. The Numeric acquisition (AUM up to $14.7bn) completes in Q314 and could be around 10% accretive on an annual basis.
 The shares have been outperformers recently bouncing from 100p (although they sold off heavily yesterday), linked to the better results from AHL which remains a key earnings driver. They are now trading on 16x this year’s consensus and yield 4.6% on the basis of a prospective ordinary dividend on a consensus basis of 8.8c. Man bought back $115m in shares at an average price of 99.7p and says that surplus cash will be used for further buybacks and dividends.
 Given the rally in the shares and lack of visibility on earnings we are reducing our recommendation to Hold (from Buy)."

TAKEOVER" The Company has announced that it has entered into a conditional agreement to acquire Numeric Holdings LLC. Subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions, it is currently expected that completion of the acquisition of Numeric will occur in September 2014. Under the terms of the Acquisition, Man Group plc will pay approximately USD219 Million in cash at completion. Owing to its size, the Acquisition constitutes a Class 1 transaction for the purposes of the Listing Rules and therefore requires the approval of Shareholders. The Man General Meeting is to be held on 5 September 2014. Relative Details and Dates: 5 September 2014 - General Meeting, September 2014 - Expected Completion of Acquisition. Further information may follow in due course. "

StockMarketWire.com
Man Group has completed its acquisition of Numeric Holdings after shareholders approved the deal this morning.

Chief executive Manny Roman said: "We are delighted to announce the completion of the acquisition of Numeric, which has an impressive track record of performance, a strong US footprint and a talented management team. Numeric is very well positioned to benefit significantly from our scale and resources and I'm excited by the opportunities this acquisition brings for our investors and shareholders."

Panmure Gordon comment today:
"AHL funds are returning much better investment performances this year than has been the case for several years which have been distorted by quantitative easing. Assuming that markets are gradually normalising we anticipate higher performance fees. AHL funds are delivering double digit returns and are exceeding their high water marks. Man has also acquired another $15.7bn (pro-forma) AUM, principally in
Numeric (completed in September), which is a significant addition to its quant offering.

We estimate performance fees for FY14 of $240m, implying $140m in the second half on top of the £101m in H1, versus $180m previously. Consensus currently is around $200m. On the back of this, we have revised our earnings estimates as follows: FY14 EPS 15.2c (from 14.0c) +9%, FY15 17.0c (from 14.5c) +17%, and FY16 18.0c (from 15c) +20%. We are now above the consensus EPS of 12c for FY14 and 15c for FY15.

The shares are trading on 10.9x FY15 December revised EPS and yield 4.6%.

We have lifted our price target to 145p from 125p previously to reflect the higher earnings and improved outlook for AHL. We have upgraded our recommendation to a Buy from Hold. They are due to report Q3 IMS on 16th October."

Liberum note last week:
"Man appear to be firmly on the road to recovery. We downgraded core EPS forecasts post the interim’s due to very cautious statements from management re. the outlook for inflows in H2’14, and also revenue margin pressure. Today’s statement shows better than expected performance re. inflows but post the analyst call we think the outlook for margins is probably a little softer still.

Net inflows for the quarter were better than feared at $0.4bn. When added to the $2.8bn of net inflows at the half year this takes the total for the 9M’14 to $3.2bn, which compares very favorably to our forecast of just $0.7bn for the full year. Inflows of $1bn from an Asia Pacific based institution into AHL helped to offset outflows at GLG.

Post the interim’s we downgraded the blended revenue margin from 1.50% to 1.40% in ’14, falling further to 1.25% in ’15 and 1.18% in ’16. This was in large part driven by a softening in management fees within Alternative Quant funds (AHL). In 2013 the margin was 2.83% and at H1’14 it fell to 2.39%. We had been forecasting a reduction to 2.33% for the full year, reducing further to 2.00% in ’15 and 1.80% in ’16. Management stated on the conference call that institutional mandates were priced at 1-2% and for larger mandates, like the Asia-Pac one referred to above this could be closer to 1%. Consequently, we think there is probably further margin pressure relative to our existing forecasts.

Following a $150m debt issuance on 16th Sept’14 (5.875%), the regulatory capital surplus now stands at $450m, before a planned for seeding programme of $75m. We expect performance fees to be used for further share buybacks.

Understandably, this appears to be a management team at pains to manage expectations well. Net inflow performance is ahead of expectations and while the outlook statement says it is mixed, we certainly anticipate a beat relative to our existing expectations. Conversely, revenue margin looks like it could be under a little more pressure. At this stage we think the net impact could be broadly neutral to our existing forecasts for Core EPS of 7.2 cents in ’14, rising to 8.5 cents in ’15. This leaves the stock trading on a Core PE of 24.7x, falling to 21.0x and yielding 4.0% rising to 4.8%. We maintain our TP of 120p."