Baillie Gifford strategies suffered a sharp £20bn drop in funds under management (FUM) in a “disappointing” year to 31 March 2023.
In a Companies House filing relating to Baillie Gifford & Co Ltd and its UK Funds business, the Edinburgh-based asset manager revealed a £15.6bn fall in the value of OEICs, while assets managed by investment trusts dropped to £22.5bn after starting the period at £27.2bn.
The firm noted short-term performance had been below par for a number of funds and net fund flows were “disappointingly negative”.
Investors pulled £1.95bn from Baillie Gifford funds in October 2022 alone, according to Morningstar fund flow data.
See also: Baillie Gifford suffers £113bn drop in assets under management
In the strategic report, Baillie Gifford directors said: “Active investment management will inevitably have performance cycles, and this is especially the case for the company’s funds which have a strong bias towards investing in growth companies. The current cycle is proving to be particularly powerful.
“After more than a decade of strong returns for most the company’s funds, the reversal of that trend has been sharp. It began late in 2021 and accelerated in 2022. As a results, short-term performance has been disappointing for a large number of funds, and longer-term performance is mixed.”
Profit after tax also dropped to £17.7m from £27.4m in the previous 12 months.
The asset manager paid out a £34m interim dividend in April, a £7m increase on 2022.
Baillie Gifford closed Charlie Broughton’s £141m British Smaller Companies Fund following a prolonged period of underperformance at the end of June.
