OBL inconsistent profits, page-4

The company will experience lumpy results depending on the timing and outcome of the court cases.
The last result was messy as they were impacted by a lower number of court cases and unfavourable results that required write offs. The court case may take a number of years to achieve an outcome, the costs relating to the court case are capitalised as an intangible, poor outcome means that the costs are written off, favourable outcome means a return on investment (profit).
They do have a very good track record of picking court cases to fund.
Their business model is changing to FUM model so management fees are expected to reduce the lumpiness of earnings. They are targeting $5bn in FUM. The plan is to also coinvest in the Funds (get the benefit of the returns on investment). The transition to a FUM model does mean that costs rise initially.