Aug 13 (Reuters) - Australia's largest wealth manager AMP Ltd said on Thursday its first-half profit nearly halved as coronavirus-induced market turmoil led to a plunge in fee income and a higher loan-loss provision at its banking unit

Underlying profit from the company's retained businesses stood at A$149 million($106.62 million), down from A$256 million a year earlier.

AMP's domestic wealth-management unit reported net cash outflows of A$4.4 billion for the first half of the year, up from A$3.1 billion a year earlier, as Australians withdrew larger sums from their pension funds to weather the pandemic.

($1 = 1.3974 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Shriya Ramakrishnan and A K Pranav in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)