By Iain Withers, Yamini Kalia
LONDON (Reuters) -British fund manager Aberdeen posted first-quarter net outflows of 5.2 billion pounds ($6.96 billion) after just one quarter of net inflows, weighed down by weak markets and a big redemption in its investments division.
The fund manager, which added back dropped vowels to its name in March after a widely-mocked rebrand to ‘abrdn’ in 2021, is trying to bolster its finances under a strategy revamp led by CEO Jason Windsor after years of tough trading conditions.
Analysts at JPMorgan said in a note that the first-quarter outflow largely reflected a previously-flagged 4.2 billion pound redemption by its biggest client Phoenix, and that the update otherwise showed some early signs of improvement.
Aberdeen said it picked up a 6 billion pound quantitative strategies mandate this month after the quarter ended, while its consumer investments platform interactive investor saw a 9% year-on-year increase in customers to 450,000.
Shares in Aberdeen were up 2% in early trading, but were last broadly flat at 0755 GMT.
Windsor said that market volatility since US President Donald Trump’s announcement of trade tariffs on April 2 had led to record trading volumes at interactive investor, but had not otherwise had a big impact on the business so far.
“We’re a long-term player with a long-term focus, and despite the new uncertainty created in recent weeks, we’ve made good progress towards our objectives,” Windsor said, adding that Aberdeen had retained its financial targets for the year.
The fund manager said its assets under management reduced to 500.1 billion pounds at the end of March from the 511.4 billion pounds at the end of 2024.
Windsor has begun cutting costs at Aberdeen and shedding under-performing businesses, but downplayed the possibility of a wider restructure involving the hiving off of its asset management division to focus on wealth.
“There is no effort or energy going in in that regard at all. We’re very happy with the configuration of the group,” Windsor said.($1 = 0.7473 pounds)
(Reporting by Iain Withers in London and Yamini Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza, Rashmi Aich and Freya Whitworth)
