Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP) has reported a 24% increase in profits for the first six months of the year to £21m and a 58% rise in external gross new business to £1.4bn. Total funds under management stand at £98bn.

SWIP, which is still searching for a new chief executive and finance director, but last month appointed a new head of property, cited continuing success in the UK retail and institutional markets with the introduction of several innovative new funds during the past 14 months, and successful expansion of its international business with inflows from across Europe, the US and Japan.

It added that more than £6bn is now being managed for Lloyds TSB Private Bank, a rise of 61% on a year ago, reflecting its "success in providing fund management products to other divisions within the Lloyds TSB Group".

With rival Standard Life Investments yesterday claiming that 18 of its 23 funds are showing above median performance, SWIP said 91% of the "funds we are actively selling to the institutional and retail markets" were above median over three years.

SWIP won £1.3bn gross new institutional business during 2006 and has already achieved gross new business inflows of around £660m for the first half of 2007, "including a number of high alpha UK equity mandates", it said.

The international division has seen a 271% increase in gross new business since June 2006, having won several new mandates in Europe across a number of asset classes.

SWIP formalised its presence in the US institutional market in 2006 and says "strong momentum" has been established, with appointments for around $500m (£247m) of new assets.

Third-party retail sales grew by 116% in the first half of the year. Top-selling retail funds include the SWIP Property Trust, SWIP Corporate Bond Plus fund and the SWIP European Real Estate fund.