The Praemium Ltd (ASX: PPS) share price closed 2.8% higher at $0.37 per share yesterday after the company announced that funds under administration (FUA) have hit $6 billion.
What did Praemium announce yesterday?
Praemium advised that since the launch of its non-custodial VMA Administration service (VMAAS) 18 months ago, its FUA have grown to over $6 billion.
The service was launched to supplement Praemium's existing non-custodial Virtual Managed Account (VMA) solution, currently managing over $100 billion in assets.
As previously advised by management, Morgan Stanley and Shaw & Partners recently signed up to the VMAAS and both of these clients are now live on the platform.
A total of 10 Praemium clients now use the service, comprising over 4,000 portfolios and over $6 billion in FUA – a 15-fold increase since December 2018.
What's been happening to the Praemium share price?
The Praemium share price has fallen 43.9% since the start of the year and 56.5% in the past 12 months in what has been a challenging period for equity investors.
Praemium has struggled to perform for investors so far this year as fellow Software as a Service (SaaS) wealth management platforms Netwealth Group Ltd (ASX: NWL) and HUB24 Ltd (ASX: HUB) have seen their share price increases in 2019.
Praemium is currently trading at 104.8x earnings which makes it slightly more expensive than both Netwealth (96.6x) and HUB24 (101.6x) on a relative value basis.
Given its current growth phase, the company does not currently pay a dividend to its shareholders, in contrast to the low-yield dividends of its competitors including Netwealth's 1.33% and HUB24's 0.17% dividend yields.
However, despite a disappointing first half of the year for investors, the Praemium share price still remains 164% higher than its $0.14 IPO price back in July 2014 on a positive note for shareholders.
