Funds under management stood at £102.3bn at the end of the quarter boosted by the acquisition of Quilter Cheviot, completed in February, which contributed £17.5bn.
Old Mutual Global Investors reported gross sales of £2.61bn in the quarter, up 5% on the £2.48bn achieved in Q1 2014. Funds under management was £22.5bn, up 7% on the start of the year, and now represents 22% of the Old Mutual Wealth’s total.
The top seller was Ian Heslop’s Global Equity Absolute Return fund with inflows of £0.6b.
Around 60% of core funds were reported to be first quartile over a three-year period and a total of 8$% of funds over the median.
Demand for pension and annuity advice helped sales at network Intrinsic climb 23% compared to Q1 2014 – overall, total sales at Intrinsic were up 65% in Q1 2015.
“Even before [the pension reforms] were introduced we saw increased demand for financial advice, flexible pension products and packaged investment solutions as people got ready for the changes,” Feeney Said.
“Our research shows that 81% of over-55s are aware of the new freedoms, indicating the reforms will encourage more people to take advantage of the benefits of saving into a pension. We hope the new government will recognise the benefit of continuity – further changes risk dampening appetite for long-term saving and creating additional complexity in the pension taxation system.
“One thing that is very clear is that we will continue to see strong demand for financial advice this year as people embrace new and more flexible ways of funding the later parts of their lives.”
