Aberdeen's AUM up 62% for year on SWIP acquisition; net outflows total £20.4 billion

Aberdeen Asset Management's assets under management increased 62% to £324.4 billion ($508.5 billion) in the year ended Sept. 30, due in part to the acquisition of Scottish Widows Investment Partnership in March.

The integrated SWIP business accounted for £135.1 billion of the total assets under management, said the financial update by Aberdeen. Excluding the SWIP business, Aberdeen's AUM was £189.3 billion, a 5.5% drop compared to Sept. 30, 2013.

Overall net outflows were £20.4 billion, compared to net outflows of £2.5 billion for the year ended Sept. 30, 2013. The Aberdeen business accounted for £16 billion of the overall net outflows, while SWIP accounted for the remaining £4.5 billion.

However, net outflows slowed in the three months ended Sept. 30, at £2.8 billion, compared with £8.8 billion for the three months ended June 30.

Within the Aberdeen business, equities contributed £12.4 billion of the yearly net outflows, followed by £4.3 billion in net outflows from global and European, Australasia and Far East strategies, and a further £4.1 billion of net outflows from global emerging markets strategies.

Aberdeen's fixed-income business saw net outflows of £2.3 billion, although within fixed income, emerging markets strategies added £1.6 billion.

Net revenue for the firm increased 4% to £1.1 billion, while underlying profit before tax increased 2% to £490.3 million.

“(We had) massive outflows … in our emerging markets business and our Asian business and global business in those first two quarters, and then a big institutional outflow in the third quarter … which affected revenue hugely,” said Martin Gilbert, CEO at Aberdeen Asset Management, in a conference call for analysts Monday. “And then we've seen the sharp improvement in the fourth quarter of the flows within equities … a big recovery.”

For 2015, Mr. Gilbert said the manager continues to see institutional interest in emerging markets equities. “We are seeing quite a lot of interest in the SWIP property fund — the issue there is getting the money into the market … so we are having to be disciplined on not pushing that fund too far. We are still seeing quite a lot of interest in the emerging markets debt product.”