Aberdeen Asset Management is starting to see investors returning to its Asian and global business following a “very difficult” first nine months of its financial year.
In its financial year to the end of September, Aberdeen suffered £16bn net outflows, which it said mainly came from its core equity funds in Asia and emerging markets.
The firm has also suffered from £4.4bn of outflows from the recently-acquired Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (Swip) business and said it expects to see further outflows from “low margin business”.
But chief executive Martin Gilbert, speaking after the firm released its annual results today, said outflows had “diminished rapidly” in the three months to the end of September and that trend has continued in the two months since.
Mr Gilbert said in recent months money had started flowing back into the firm’s Asian and global equity strategies, but added investors had yet to start buying back into the emerging market funds.
He said the majority of interest so far had come from institutional investors and that wholesale clients, such as wealth managers, who had sold out in droves at the start of the year, had yet to return.
Investor interest has been helped by an improvement in performance across Aberdeen’s equity range.
Aberdeen chairman Roger Cornick said 2013 had been a “difficult period for performance” within the equity funds but that the strategies had “recovered” in 2014.
