Abbey Capital, a Dublin-based alternative investment manager, paid dividends amounting to €8.5m to its parent company in the year to last June.

The dividends paid by Abbey, which was set up in 2000 by Dublin investment managers Tony Gannon and Tim Brosnan, to its parent company Cavendish Capital during that period were down from €11m last year.

Abbey subsequently paid a €2.5m dividend to Cavendish, which is majority-owned by Gannon and Brosnan, last September.

Abbey specialises in managing multi-manager portfolios in managed futures. In the managed futures segment of the hedge fund industry, managers trade a range of futures and foreign exchange markets intending to profit from price movement, including equities, bonds and commodities.

In the director report of its recent results, Abbey described the period from July 2019 to June 2020 as mixed for managed futures. A positive performance occurred during the sharp correction in equities in the first quarter of last year.

The positive performance was offset mainly by losses in the fourth quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2020. During that period, the overall market environment for risk assets was more favourable and managed futures strategies struggled due to reversals in some sectors.

Abbey said the funds managed by it were mostly positive, with the most significant gains recorded from longs in fixed income.

Pre-tax profit at Abbey for the period to June 2020 was over €12.8m, up from around €10.4m in 2019.

Abbey reported shareholders’ funds had increased to €30.9m, up from over €27.6m. It employed on average 60 people over the year to last June, paying out for wages, salaries, welfare and pension costs of over €11.5m.

In the directors’ report, Abbey said the Covid-19 pandemic had not had a significant impact on the company or on the funds it manages.

The company is also set to retain a global focus in its business development goals. It said the US remains Abbey’s largest market, but “significant assets” had also been raised from investors in other geographic locations.

Sunday Independent