Not only did the world’s biggest hedge fund manager again raise the roof, some of its most impressive gains came from AHL, a fund long ago abandoned by its founders after Man initially neglected it, believing it could not go the distance. Ah, the sweet pleasure of being proven wrong...

Man Group Plc, the world's largest publicly traded hedge fund manager, doubled its dividend after last year's earnings rose 60 percent and its flagship fund outperformed competitors.

Man Group advanced as much as 3.5 percent in London trading after it said pretax profit increased more than analysts estimated to $2.08 billion for the year ended March 31 from $1.3 billion a year earlier. Assets under management rose 4.6 percent from the end of March to a record $78.5 billion, it said in a statement.

AHL Diversified Plc, the computer-trading program behind about $25 billion of Man funds, rose 37 percent in the period, five times more than the 7.3 percent gain for the Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index. Peter Clarke, chief executive officer since April 2007, said the flow of new funds from investors has been "unaffected" by this year's overall performance of hedge funds, which got off to the weakest start in nearly two decades.

"AHL's recent strong performance during turbulence stands them in good stead for inflows," said Daniel Havercroft, an analyst at Investec Ltd. in London, who has a "buy" rating on the shares. "They're going to be on the winning side" for attracting investments.

Man said its dividend for the year will be 44 cents, up from 20 cents a year earlier. The London-based company also plans to resume a share buybacks.

Man gained 18 pence to 604 pence at 8:15 a.m. in London, valuing the company at 1.04 billion pounds. The stock is up 6.9 percent this year, the best performance in the 60-member Bloomberg Europe Banks and Financial Services Index.

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