T. Rowe Price Group reported assets under management of $1.57 trillion at the end of the first quarter, an increase of 1.6% from $1.54 trillion from a year earlier, but a 2.5% decrease from $1.61 trillion the previous quarter.
Equity products led the quarter’s net outflows at $19.2 billion followed by alternatives with $300 million in net outflows. Multiasset products led net inflows during the quarter at $5.5 billion followed by fixed income, including money market products, with $5.4 billion in inflows.
Net client outflows totaled $8.6 billion during the first quarter, down from $19.3 billion in the previous quarter, according to an earnings release.
“We are making important progress and are extending our reach — leveraging our world class investment platform, our leadership position in retirement, and the strength of our brand,” said CEO and President Rob Sharps in the release. “We are well positioned to navigate periods of uncertainty and to help our clients to do the same.”
By client type, institutional investors accounted for $1.7 billion in net outflows during the first quarter while retail investors made up $6.9 billion in net outflows, according to a supplemental earnings release.
Sharps said on the firm’s earnings call that the flow outlook for 2025 is “largely unchanged.”
“When you net it all out, our base case is still for full year ’25 to improve relative to 2024 which is encouraging given the challenging backdrop. Given the environment, though, I think it's hard to have a lot of conviction on how the rest of the year will play out. But I would point out that while we’re fighting some pretty intense headwinds in open ended mutual fund as a vehicle and active equity as an asset class, we’ve got a lot to be excited about,” he said, pointing to strong momentum in fixed income and retirement solutions, capital commitments to alternative credit subsidiary Oak Hill Advisors and growth of exchange-traded funds.
Sharps added, “I’m confident that we have a path back to positive flows. I think it’s unlikely to be in ’25, but I think ’25 will take another step back in that direction.”
Retirement assets account for 66% of the firm’s assets under management.
Sharps was asked about the potential for alternatives to enter the U.S. retirement channel and partnerships with private market firms.
“I think if you zoom out the defined contribution market and parts of the wealth market at this point have not had broad access to private market alternatives. They’re really the only big pools of capital that remain untapped,” he said on the earnings call. “In my mind, there’s no question that eventually it will happen. I think you can debate timing and magnitude, but at some point, and to some degree, defined contribution, more traditional high net worth and mass affluent will get access to private market alternatives. These are obviously really important end markets to us.”
