Man Group posts FUM of $76.8 bln as at 30 September

Market turbulence sparked a $2.3 billion (£1.3 billion) slide in Man Group’s assets under management (AUM), with GLG providing a drag despite net inflows in the third quarter.

The company, which started life as an 18th-century rum supplier to the Royal Navy, saw assets fall to $76.8 billion from $78.8 billion for the three months ending September 30 despite luring a net $1.4 billion from investors’ pockets.

“The net inflow for the quarter was driven by flows into our quant strategies and we have a solid pipeline of sales in the near-term”.

“In our opinion, this is the most positive outlook statement that this management team has issued, which is encouraging”, said RBC Capital Markets analyst Peter Lenardos.

Analysts at JPMorgan said the asset fall had been in line with consensus expectations, but that the net inflows had been above expectations of $800 million. ‘We believe this has a positive mix effect as inflows were into higher margin products and outflows were from lower margin products’.

Man’s shares rose 5.60p to 156.64p this morning.

CEO Roman warned the volatility in markets could affect future flows to the group.

After a period of several years diversifying away from its core AHL systematic trading strategies, Man’s computer-based funds returned a positive performance during the quarter.

At quant divisions AHL and Numeric, long-only FUM decreased by $1.2bn during the quarter with negative performance being partially offset by net inflows of $400m, mainly into global funds.

Among its worst-performing funds were “long-only” ones unable to bet on falling markets, which collectively lost $3.1 billion.

The company expects political uncertainties and economic upheaval around the world to continue to create a volatile market. “Accordingly, the risk appetite of our clients may impact flows, but we remain focused on continuing to generate attractive investment returns across our range of strategies”, he said. Overall net inflows hit $900 million, propelled by $500 million and $300 million into Alpha and Dimension.