Just caught Perpetual's H1 results and the numbers are pretty solid. Their net profit before tax basically doubled to A$69.7M from A$34.7M year-on-year, which is a pretty sharp jump. What's interesting is it wasn't just revenue growth - they actually cut expenses down to A$607.2M from A$634.3M, and there were no impairment losses this time around unlike last year's A$25.5M hit.

Bottom line profit came in at A$53.9M or 46.5 cents per share, way up from A$12M the year before. Even stripping out one-time items, the underlying profit for Perpetual hit A$112.7M. Revenue moved up modestly to A$704.1M. They're also paying out an interim dividend of A$0.59 per share, so management seems confident about where things are heading.

Not groundbreaking growth in revenue terms, but the operational efficiency gains and the lack of write-downs made a real difference to the bottom line. That's the kind of earnings beat you like to see.