London-based wealth manager Quilter said the total value of assets it manages ticked up in the first quarter of its financial year after a modest rise in equity markets and slightly lower bond yields.
Assets under management and administration (AuMA) at Old Mutual’s former wealth management business rose 2% to £101.9bn in the three months to end-March, which is still below the 2022 full-year average of £102.8bn.
Asset managers worldwide struggled to grow asset pools in 2022 amid market turbulence because of the fallout from the war in Ukraine and a lengthy series of interest-rate hikes to tame high inflation. As a result, global equity values and bonds slumped.
“We remain cautiously optimistic that, over the course of 2023, we will continue to see a gradual return of investor confidence and improving market levels. Our expectation is that this will support an improvement in flows over the course of the year,” CEO Steven Levin said.
“I am pleased with the trends we have seen in our first quarter flows. From a low base around the end of the year, each subsequent month has demonstrated an improvement on the prior period,” he added.
First-quarter net inflows were down 70.2% compared with the same quarter a year earlier when markets were flourishing before the war the in Ukraine, but nearly doubled quarter on quarter.
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