Man Group's assets under management grew 3.3% in the quarter ended March 31, to $112.7 billion, bolstered by net inflows of $4.8 billion. For the year ended March 31, AUM increased 27.1%.
The money manager said in an update Thursday that net inflows for the quarter of $4.8 billion compared with net inflows of $1.8 billion for the three months ended Dec. 31, and $3 billion in net inflows for the quarter ended March 31, 2017.
The firm changed the categorization of its assets under management, as announced in its 2017 financial update earlier this year, so it "better represents strategies with similar characteristics." The categories are alternative and long-only, which are further split into subcategories; and guaranteed strategies.
Alternative AUM grew 3.7% in the first quarter, to $64 billion, with net inflows of $3.4 billion. That compares with $2.9 billion in net inflows for the alternatives category in the fourth quarter of 2017.
The alternative subcategories are absolute return, total return and multimanager solutions strategies.
Absolute return AUM increased 0.3% to $29.3 billion. The update said negative performance across Man AHL's momentum strategies was partially offset by positive performance across the firm's GLG alternative strategies, resulting in an investment loss of $900 million for the subcategory.
Total return AUM increased 12% in the quarter; and multimanager solutions AUM grew 1.3% to $16.2 billion.
Long-only AUM grew 2.8% in the quarter ended March 31, to $48.5 billion, with net inflows of $1.4 billion vs. net outflows of $1 billion for the previous quarter.
The category is made up of systematic and discretionary strategies. Systematic AUM grew 0.4% to $26.9 billion; while discretionary strategy AUM grew 5.9% to $21.6 billion.
Guaranteed strategy AUM was flat at $200 million. The previous quarter guaranteed strategies recorded $100 million in net outflows.
Also in the update, Man Group said the firm continues "to review further potential acquisition opportunities."
Added Luke Ellis, CEO of Man Group, also in the update: "The first quarter of 2018 was a weaker environment for equity markets and momentum strategies. While this impacted our absolute performance in some areas, outperformance across our long-only and discretionary alternative strategies demonstrated the resilient and diversified nature of our business."
A note about the company update by equity analysts at Jefferies said: "The AUM data support out investment thesis that diversification, a shift to more institutional clients and reformed distribution should support broad inflows and drive value."