AGM Statement

7 July 2006

                          Stock Exchange Announcement                          

                        LIONTRUST ASSET MANAGEMENT PLC                         

                             Chairman's Statement                              

I am pleased to report a robust set of results. They are robust in that they
show how our business model insulates us quite well from the usual variables
that affect fund management companies. Levels of funds under management, the
margins on them, the level of the stockmarket, new business flows and in this
last year the effects of the new accounting standard IFRS; they all have an
impact.

The average level of our funds under management at £4.543 billion this year was
10% lower than the average level during the previous financial year, yet
profits were only 2% lower. The stockmarket continued, as it always will, to go
up and down. But we don't run our business on the basis that a rise in the
stockmarket will drive our profits. Sound management will achieve that. We know
that the market fluctuates through time. As well as reaping the benefits from a
strong and rising market we want to make sure that we can withstand falls when
they occur. In my statement in the Company's 2006 Annual Report and Accounts I
said that our cost:income ratio implies we would still be profitable if the
FTSE 100 index fell to 1968. I mention this as it is our primary duty to run a
business that provides continuity of service to our clients.

Particularly notable among the metrics we use to measure our progress are:
changes in non-people costs which we reduced by 24% this year through reduced
costs of outsourcing and reduced administration costs on withdrawn pension fund
mandates; the revenues and profits we generate per employee which were £715,000
and £258,000 respectively this year; margins (based on profit before tax
divided by average funds under management) which were up slightly to 0.23%.
Funds under management stood at £5.074 billion on 31 March 2006. Funds under
management stood at £5.122 billion on 6 July 2006.

Although we had a net £268 million of pension fund assets withdrawn during the
year, the pattern has changed since. In the last three months we have attracted
a net £182 million in new pension fund assets. A similar pattern has occurred
with unit trusts. In the year net unit trust redemptions were £128 million and
have been flat over the last three months, while gross sales have averaged £27
million per month over the same period.

Shareholders will have read in my last statement that according to a recent
survey 62% of fund managers have changed jobs in the last three years. Our
research tells us that investors want stability and continuity not frequent
change.

The position of continuity among our fund management teams is as follows.
Jeremy Lang has been with Liontrust since 1995, and it is 20 years next month
since he and William Pattisson first started working together. Anthony Cross
joined at the beginning of 1998. Gary West and James Inglis-Jones have worked
together for over nine years, the first few with William Pattisson.

The addition of our two new fund managers, Gary and James, marks our first move
into a new product area. We are delighted they have joined us and are confident
that the process they develop for the management of European equities will be
as robust as our four current investment processes for UK equities. Their
investment process will, of course, be different but it will share many of the
characteristics common to our existing ones, being rooted in behavioural
finance.

We plan to introduce the European process to selected clients in September with
the first investment product being a unit trust. We plan for segregated, pooled
pension fund and alternative investment fund accounts to be established in due
course and for a Luxembourg SICAV to be established early next year for
overseas clients. We will develop sales to a continental European client base.

In establishing Liontrust European Investment Services Limited as a subsidiary
company in which fund managers buy a minority interest we have tackled the
thorny question of how to get equity into fund managers' hands. Ensuring equity
participation of other employees, all of whom are key to our business, is
something we are still working on.

We believe we now have the template to move into other new product areas. We
know what we're looking for and how hard it is to find. Other areas will follow
in time but there is no urgency. More important, in our view, is to take time
and get it right rather than be hasty and get it wrong.

The goal remains to increase the total return for shareholders from Liontrust
shares. We will continue to look for ways of achieving this including a focus
on efficient balance sheet management given current cash levels, which in turn
could include the purchase of our own shares for cancellation. We would do this
under the annually renewed authority given to the board by shareholders.

We now have as clients many highly respected pension funds, 20,000 private
investors, 5,000 intermediaries of different types with whom we regularly
communicate and we are on 16 UK distribution platforms including `fund
supermarkets'. We have a staff of 39 people who really enjoy what they do. Many
having worked together for a very long time.

We can achieve a lot more. I must say that I really look forward to the
prospect and the path to achieving it.

Bernard H Asher

Chairman

For further information please contact:

Liontrust Asset Management PLC:

Nigel Legge or Vinay Abrol Tel: [phone]

JPMorgan Cazenove Limited:

Richard Locke Tel: [phone]

ENDS