Polar Capital today reported net inflows of £1.9bn over the year to the end of March, taking its total assets under management to £12bn.
The firm’s latest update revealed AUM had increased from £9.3bn at the end of March 2017 – a 29% rise during the year.
AUM increased by £300m during the first quarter alone, after the firm experienced £252m of adverse market movements detracting from its net inflows of £525m.
Polar Capital noted that the quarter saw increased market volatility due to US inflationary concerns, the anticipation of the end of the bull run and increasing geopolitical tension.
Gavin Rochuessen, chief executive of Polar Capital, said: “As markets have become more volatile in the most recent quarter, Polar Capital’s specialist actively managed funds have performed in line with expectations.
“The benefits of fundamental actively-managed funds have been particularly well demonstrated in the significantly more volatile quarter, with 82% of group AUM performing ahead of benchmark.”
Man Group
Elsewhere, Man Group reported its funds under management (FUM) as $112.7bn (£79.5bn), driven by net inflows during Q1 of $4.8bn.
This more than offset the $1.8bn of losses in the first three months of the year, mainly from its alternative and long-only discretionary portfolios.
Strong inflows were seen in alternative risk premia, European long-short and emerging market local currency strategies.
The firm also announced its intention to buy back a further $100m of shares and that it continues to seek further acquisition opportunities. This is in addition to a separate $100m share repurchase announced in October 2017.
Luke Ellis, chief executive at Man Group, said: “The ongoing interest in our range of strategies reflects our innovative offering and the strength of our client relationships. In particular, we continued to see client demand for our alternative risk premia strategies and saw flows returning to our European long short strategy, following a sustained period of improved performance.
“The first quarter of 2018 was a weaker environment for equity markets and momentum strategies. While this impacted our absolute performance in some areas, outperformance across our long only and discretionary alternative strategies demonstrated the resilient and diversified nature of our business.”
However, Ellis warned the institutional nature of Man Group’s business means flows are likely to be uneven on a quarter-to-quarter basis.
