Legal & General Investment Management’s (LGIM) assets under management increased 7% over the past year buoyed by sales of exchange traded funds.
At the end of June AUM stood at £1.3trn, compared with £1.2trn at the end of June 2020.
Total net flows during the period were £25.7bn, of which £15bn were from international clients. This compares with £5.6bn in H1 2020, with a net outflow of £3.2bn from international clients.
LGIM delivered operating profit growth of 4% to £204m in the period, up from £197m in the first half of 2020. It said this reflected “increased revenues from flows and favourable business mix”.
Revenue increased 3% to £480m, from £467m in 2020, which LGIM attributed to an increased focus on higher margin areas such as thematic ETFs and multi-asset.
LGIM said it had seen a more than 50% increase in ETF AUM over H1 2021 to $13bn (£9.3bn), adding a focus on thematic ETFs had helped flows.
Elsewhere, it reported external net flows into multi-asset funds were £1.8bn in H1 2021, up from £1.6bn in 2020, thanks to demand from defined contribution (DC) pension schemes and retail customers.
Liability driven investment (LDI) solutions for UK defined benefit (DB) pension schemes delivered positive external net flows of £ 18.8bn, up from £8.3bn in 2020.
The index business reported external net flows of £ 4.7bn, compared with £4.4bn in 2020.
Active strategies saw external net flows of £ 2.3bn, up from £500m the year before, as a result of positive net inflows from US and UK DB clients.
LGIM said real assets saw external net flows of -£200m down from £200m in 2020, as the market continues to assess the longer-term impact of Covid-19 on demand.
