Assets under management at Aberdeen Asset Management increased 2.3% to £330.6 billion ($500.2 billion) in the six months ended March 31, despite continued net outflows from emerging markets strategies.
In a half-year financial update, Aberdeen said equities AUM increased 3.8% to £110.3 billion compared to Sept. 30, while fixed income was up 1.4% to £72.4 billion. The Aberdeen solutions unit increased assets 2.8% to £128.5 billion, while real estate decreased 4.9% to £19.4 billion.
Total net outflows for the six months ended March 31 were £11.3 billion. That compared with net outflows of £8.8 billion for the same period a year earlier. Emerging market equities suffered £1.7 billion of net outflows over the six months, while global and Europe, Australasia, Far East equities strategies saw net outflows of £2.1 billion. U.S. equities had net outflows of £333 million for the six-month period.
“AUM increased slightly to £330.6 billion because of strong markets and gross new business inflows,” said CEO Martin Gilbert in a conference call Tuesday. “But we had a pretty torrid time as far as outflows were concerned, largely because of our exposure to emerging markets and asset allocation decisions from clients away from emerging markets.”
Gross inflows were “impacted by a lot of macro-led outflow decisions,” and “it is going to be tough for us until emerging markets come back into fashion,” said Mr. Gilbert.
