Henderson Group reported assets under management of £92.7 billion ($133.2 billion) as of March 31, up 0.8% from Dec. 31, despite net outflows from the institutional business and a difficult quarter in the markets, Henderson’s trading update said Wednesday.
For the 12 months ended March 31, assets increased 3.7%.
Henderson reported £769 million of net outflows from its institutional business for the first quarter, compared with £700 million of institutional net inflows for the first quarter of 2015. Total net inflows for the quarter ended Dec. 31, were £1.6 billion; institutional figures were not available.
Institutional assets under management increased over the three months ended March 31 by 0.9% to £35.4 billion. Negative market movements were offset by positive foreign-exchange movements as the Australian dollar, U.S. dollar and euro strengthened vs. the pound sterling, adding £1.1 billion to institutional assets under management over the quarter. Institutional assets decreased over the year ended March 31 by 4.4%.
The net outflows were driven by a £500 million redemption about which the firm was previously notified and to strategy closures, said Phil Wagstaff, global head of distribution at Henderson, in a conference call Wednesday. Details were not provided on the redemption.
Mr. Wagstaff added that institutional activity levels are high and “increasingly global,” and that the firm is seeing continued demand for credit strategies and interest in emerging markets equities. “As always with the institutional business, outcomes can be binary, but I’m comfortable that we are taking all the right steps to grow the institutional client base,” he said.
Andrew Formica, CEO of Henderson, said on the same conference call that the first quarter of 2016 had been made up of two halves. “The first six weeks of 2016, there was a whole series of concerns that weighed on the markets, whether it was China, oil, negative interest rates, for example. Then, and without any much really clearly identifiable changes to the fundamentals, the oil price bottomed out, reassurance came from China, and the (European Central Bank) and the (Federal Reserve) drove an end-quarter rally that we saw affecting particularly materials, commodities and the emerging markets areas. The fact that the MSCI World index ended up back where it started masks significant volatility that was evident over the course of that quarter.”
