The firm’s third party funds reported net flows of £7.8bn, but this was somewhat offset by £2.5bn in outflows from strategic partner life business.
Wholesale and institutional inflows during the period jumped to a record £10bn during the nine months, from £4.4bn, the firm said, reporting strong inflows across all asset classes.
Multi-asset continued to do well, accounting for £7.4bn of the £7.8bn in net inflows, while the firm’s Myfolio product suite accounted for £1.4bn. Inflows into equities remained flat, but fixed income funds saw inflows of £600m.
Speaking on a conference call following the release of the results, CEO Keith Skeoch said the encouraging aspect of the Q3 numbers was the broad spread of inflows, albeit dominated by multi-asset which includes the firm’s flagship GARS fund.
“The other thing we are seeing is a continued strong flow from the wholesale area and within that wholesale area there is quite a good spread of business, if you look across the first nine months, and I don’t think the third quarter was that different about 46% of sales from UK, 27% from Europe, 15% from Asia and 12% from North America,” he added.
Skeoch also said that the firm is beginning to see a pickup in sales into its absolute return government bond strategy and “quite a lot of interest” in its enhanced diversification emerging markets fund and its emerging markets bond funds as well.
At a group level, Standard Life reported a 2% jump in assets under administration to £301.9bn, driven, it said, by “strong net inflows of £5.8bn, including net inflows of £2.4bn in Q3 2015”.
Wrap assets increased to £23.6bn, a 20% year-on-year jump boosted by net inflows of £3.3bn, up 25% on the previous 9 month period. In the third quarter the firm’s wrap business reported a record £1.2bn in inflows.
