November 30, 2012 12:00 AM

Moody's: 14 money managers' aggregate AUM up 4.1% for quarter

The aggregate assets under management of 14 pure-play money managers reviewed by Moody's Investors Service totaled $8.28 trillion, up 4.1%, in the third quarter, according to Moody's quarterly update.

The AUM increase was entirely from positive market performance as domestic and international equity indexes returned 5% to 6%. All managers had increases in AUM for the quarter and past 12 months.

The managers had an aggregate net outflow of $5.1 billion in the third quarter. However, excluding a $74.2 billion fixed-income account on which BlackRock elected not to rebid, there would have been a net inflow of $69.1 billion.

For the quarter, eight of the 14 managers had net inflows. Affiliated Managers Group reported $11 billion in net inflows, its 10th consecutive quarter of strong AUM flow, according to the report. Invesco had $11.7 billion in inflows.

AMG had the largest AUM percent increase for the quarter at 8.2%, followed by Waddell & Reed, 6.4%, and Franklin Resources, 6.1%. For the past year, AMG also led with a 36% increase, followed by T. Rowe Price, with 26.7%, and Waddell & Reed, 22.4%.

However, over the past five quarters, the 14 managers had aggregate cumulative outflows of $61.3 billion.

Revenues were up a net 3.4% and EBITDA for the group increased 6.8%. Performance fees almost doubled from the prior quarter despite Janus Capital Group's negative mutual fund performance fees.

Compared to the third quarter of 2011, aggregate AUM increased 11.9%, or $882 billion, while equity AUM increased 18.6%, or $599 billion. The share of equities in total AUM increased 0.9 percentage points to 46% in the quarter, up 2.6 percentage points over the past year. Fixed-income AUM increased $42 billion for the quarter and $215 billion over the past year, but the share of AUM dropped 0.9 and 1.1 percentage points, respectively.

Moody's outlook on the money management sector remained stable, citing manageable debt burdens and stable fundamentals for the group of managers as a whole.