InvestmentsMay 10 2013

F&C in further group outflow but retail funds grow

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F&C Asset Management suffered net outflows of £1.5bn in the first quarter of 2013, mainly due to ongoing mandate losses on its ‘strategic partners’ business.

F&C in March stated that its former owner Friends Life, which sold the asset manager to the stockmarket in 2009, was set to pull £6.2bn of mandates in the first half of 2013 alone.

Another strategic partner, Dutch financial services group Achmea is going to pull mandates worth £10.3bn at the end of October 2013, F&C has revealed today in an interim management statement.

In total F&C suffered strategic partners outflows of £1.9bn in the first quarter, the group also said.

However, the retail funds business saw net inflows of £139m in the quarter, the only area of the business to see flows improve, which F&C attributed to “good performance in certain product categories and to the benefits of the successful refocusing of the sales and marketing organisation”.

F&C also saw its assets under management rise by 3.8 per cent to £98.8bn as at end-March 2013 as positive market movements offset negative flows.

The group’s wholesale business was hit by outflows of £178m in the quarter, which reduced its assets by nearly 10 per cent to £1.2bn, due to continuing outflows from the Thames River Capital Global Credit, Global Bond and Multi-Alternative funds, though the firm said outflows had slowed since 2012.

The firm was taken over by activist investor Edward Bramson, of Sherborne Investors, in early 2011 and he launched an aggressive cost cutting programme.