Janus First-Quarter Profit Drops 60%

Mutual fund company Janus Capital Group Inc., grappling with sagging stock portfolios and an investor exodus, said Tuesday its first-quarter profit slid about 60% as assets tumbled amid the market downturn.

Denver-based Janus, one of the hottest mutual fund companies of the late 1990s, has been badly beaten up amid the long bear market. Its assets under management fell to $132.7 billion as of the end of March, down from more than $300 billion at the stock market’s peak three years ago.

Janus said first-quarter profit dropped to $38.6 million, or 17 cents a share, from $97.2 million, or 42 cents a share, a year earlier.

Total assets under management at the end of March were off about 30% from year-earlier levels of $189.9 billion, reflecting portfolio declines and withdrawals from investors.

Among fund companies, “Janus is one of the biggest in terms of outflows,” said analyst Matthew Snowling of Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group. “It may be a sign that investors are just throwing in the towel.”

Earlier this month, Janus said fund manager and managing director of investments Helen Young Hayes, once one of the industry’s hottest stock pickers, would step down from daily fund management in June and leave the company at year’s end.

Janus shares rose 70 cents to $13.86 on the New York Stock Exchange. They are down from a 52-week high of $22.71 reached in May of last year.