BrightSphere AUM drops 20.8% in quarter

BrightSphere Investment Group's assets under management fell 20.8% in the quarter ended March 31 to $161.8 billion, the company announced in its earnings statement Thursday.

Total AUM was also 27.2% below the $222.3 billion the company reported as of March 31, 2019.

The drop during the first quarter was attributed to $43.5 billion in market depreciation and $100 million in alternative asset distributions, partially offset by $1 billion in net inflows.

In BrightSphere's quantitative and solutions segment, assets under management totaled $79 billion as of March 31, down 22.5% from three months earlier and down 16.9% from a year earlier.

In liquid alpha, AUM totaled $58.5 billion as of March 31, down 25.7% from Dec. 31 and down 44.7% from March 31, 2019. In alternatives, AUM totaled $24.3 billion as of March 31, up 2.1% from three months earlier and up 1.3% year-over-year.

Suren Rana, BrightSphere's newly installed president and CEO, said in a news release: "We were particularly pleased with the investment performance in our quant and solutions segment where our largest business, Acadian, topped the respective benchmarks in 67% of the strategies year-to-date, driving outperformance in 46%, 59% and 100% of strategies over the prior 3-, 5-, and 10-year periods, respectively."

Mr. Rana also noted that alternatives manager Landmark Partners, one of BrightSphere's seven majority-owned investment management affiliates, is "well-positioned to benefit from this environment due to increased supply of attractive opportunities for secondary strategies in private alternatives."

Management fee revenue totaled $178.5 million, down 18.7% for the quarter and down 29% for the year.

Revenue on a GAAP basis was $182.6 million for the first quarter, down 12% from the previous quarter and down 11.9% from the year-earlier period.

Net income was $22.1 million for the first quarter vs. $74.3 million in the previous quarter and $61.1 million for the first quarter of 2019.