M&G’s assets under management stood at £344bn at the end of the first quarter of 2023
In an update today, the London-based fund manager said this was slightly up from £342bn at the end of 2022.
But, despite “volatile markets”, the company said it achieved net client inflows of £400mn, up from £300mn in the full year results of 2022.
It said this absorbed expected redemptions from UK institutional clients that were triggered in September 2022 by the ‘mini-budget crisis’.
Andrea Rossi, the company's chief executive, said: “M&G started the year building on our strong momentum from 2022. At full-year results we identified three priorities for the group: maintain financial strength through capital discipline, simplify the business, and deliver profitable growth focusing on asset management and wealth.
“I am pleased to say we have made good progress on each of those fronts and are on track to deliver on our ambitious targets.”
Meanwhile M&G said momentum in wholesale asset management accelerated further, with net client inflows of £1bn in Q1 and continued strong investment performance.
Rossi said: “Thanks to this success, we more than offset the expected redemptions from institutional clients and drove inflows into high-margin propositions.
“Much of this growth has come from our home market, the UK, where we were amongst the ‘top five’ managers by net flows in the period, ending a long period of subdued performance.”
Elsewhere, in 2020 M&G began embarking on a five-year transformation programme.
As part of this, it said it aimed to trim its staff costs by 10 per cent and launched a voluntary redundancy scheme to shed staff.
In today’s update, M&G said: “We are moving at pace on the transformation programme, continuing to identify opportunities to streamline the business and achieve our cost saving target while delivering better outcomes to our clients and colleagues.
“The voluntary redundancy programme launched in March is now closed, with over 200 accepted applications, corresponding to around 4 per cent of the total workforce.”
M&G said most of these exits were expected to become effective between Q4 2023 and Q1 2024.
It said it is “right sizing” the office footprint to reflect the needs of the business.
“During the first half of the year we have concluded subleases on surplus space in our London estate. Work will continue on reviewing our footprint in the second half of the year.”
In March, M&G reported its profits fell 27 per cent in 2022 after market volatility increased its annuity losses.
In a full year results, the investment manager reported pre-tax adjusted operating profit of £529mn, down from £721mn a year before.
sonia.rach@ft.com
What do you think about the issues raised by this story? Email us on ftadviser.newsdesk@ft.com to let us know
