Eaton Vance Beats By Two Cents

Medtronic (MDT) wasn’t our only Buy List stock to report earnings. Eaton Vance (EV) reported fiscal Q4 earnings of 41 cents per share, two cents better than expectations.

This was a good quarter for EV. Net inflows rose to $3.4 billion from $500 million. Revenue jumped 19% to $303.6 million from $254.1 million. Wall Street was looking for revenue of $287.4 million.

The details here look solid:

Investment advisory and administration fees — money the Boston-based company collects for managing mutual funds and separate accounts — increased 18 percent, reflecting an increase in assets under management. Eaton Vance’s managed assets total was $185.2 billion as of Oct. 31, up 20 percent from the year-ago figure of $154.9 billion.

The higher asset total was the result of investment gains, and of investors putting more money in than they took out. Eaton Vance reported a net inflow of $3.2 billion into funds and separate accounts in the latest quarter. However, the inflow total fell from $5.5 billion in last year’s fourth quarter, and from $4.8 billion in this year’s third quarter.

Operating expenses rose 11 percent to $197.5 million from $177.3 million in the year-ago quarter. The increase was driven in part by higher employee compensation expenses, and growth in asset- and sales-based distribution expenses.

Unfortunately, this stock has been stuck in a trading range for the past six months. Shares of EV have barely strayed from $30.

Last month, Eaton Vance raised its dividend for the 30th year in a row. The new dividend is 18 cents per share which is a 12.5% increase from the old dividend of 16 cents per share.

Posted by on November 23rd, 2010 at 3:02 pm


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