Aberdeen Asset Management reported assets under management of £209.6 billion ($322.3 billion) as of June 30, down 1.3% from the end of March but up 14.7% from a year earlier.
The firm experienced its first quarterly outflows since 2011 as investors pulled money from its equity and emerging-markets funds.
Customers withdrew £3.4 billion in the three months to the end of June, the first quarterly net outflow since Dec. 31, 2011. Clients removed about £2.5 billion last month, the firm reported Monday.
“Flows and investment performance are disappointing and below our expectations,” Peter Lenardos, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets in London, wrote in a report to clients Monday. “The only good news is that despite the flow and investment performance figures, because of business mix changes and market performance so far in the current quarter, there should be no material changes to our forecasts.”
The company also posted its first outflows in its equities funds since 2008, as one client pulled £500 million out of U.S. equities, and the company restricted new business in emerging-markets stocks.
“June was a very volatile month with the U.S. really calling the end of quantitative easing,” CEO Martin Gilbert said in a telephone interview. “We are at the end of a 30-year bull market and there has been a lot of volatility so I am not surprised there were outflows.”
Mr. Gilbert reiterated Aberdeen's strategy to increase the dividend at a “reasonable rate” and buy back shares with any excess cash toward the end of the year. The company might continue to make “small to highly accretive” acquisitions after completing two transactions in the quarter.
