Ashmore Group's pretax profit falls 34 pct

LONDON, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Ashmore Group (Other OTC: AJMPF - news) 's profit before tax fell 34 percent to 170.3 million pounds ($275.8 million) in the year to the end of June, the emerging market-focused money manager said on Thursday.

The firm's assets under management (AUM) stood at $75 billion at the end of June, down from $77.4 billion a year ago, it said in a statement, adding that 81 percent of AUM outperformed benchmarks over a three-year period.

The money manager said it had cut total operating costs by 23 percent to 97.9 million pounds and proposed to pay a final dividend of 12 pence per share, giving a 2 percent increase for the full-year dividend of 16.45 pence. ($1 = 0.6176 British Pounds) (Reporting by Nishant Kumar; editing by David CLarke)