Luckily for the firm retail investors still see it as a favourite, with inflows into pooled funds of £5.6bn during the same period meaning its total redemptions were just £152m.
In advance of entering a close period ahead of its annual results for the 12 months to 30 September, Aberdeen issued a trading update that said total assets under management at 31 August were up 1% on two months earlier at £184.3bn.
The group’s equity funds were the only recipients of net new business during the two-month period, witnessing inflows of £2bn and market appreciation, performance and foreign exchange increases of £1.6bn.
Fixed income products, on the other hand, saw redemptions of £1.3bn and flat market performance, while the company’s low-cost Aberdeen Solutions partly made up for £0.7bn of outflows by putting a positive market performance in, to the tune of £0.5bn.
Net new business stands still
While gross new business for the two months to the end of August totalled £6.1bn, bringing the total for the 11 months to 31 August to £33.1bn, net new business flows were not nearly as convincing.
During the two months in question, net new business saw £0.1bn in outflows, taking the net outflows for the 11 months to 31 August to £0.2bn.
The group said: “Inflows continue to be biased towards higher margin pooled products, with outflow mainly from lower margin segregated mandates.
“The main contributors of inflows have again been our Asia Pacific, global emerging markets and global equities products, with encouraging inflows also seen into our emerging market debt capability.”
Aberdeen expects the inflows for the two months to 31 August to add approximately £10m in annualised recurring fee income.
Overall, in the 11 months to the end of August, Aberdeen’s equities offering absorbed £9.4bn of inflows, while fixed income, Aberdeen Solutions and property experienced outflows of £5.2bn, £3bn and £183m respectively.
