14th Oct 2014 07:02
LONDON (Alliance News) - Ashmore Group PLC Tuesday reported a USD3.7 billion fall in assets under management over the course of the first quarter, citing negative investment performance of USD3.4 billion and net outflows of USD300 million.
In a statement, the emerging markets asset manager said assets under management fell to USD71.3 billion at the end of September from USD75.0 billion at the end of June.
Chief Executive Mark Coombs said the decline in assets under management over the quarter was primarily due to the "correction" in the markets towards the end of the period, driven by the strength of the US dollar.
"Against this backdrop, the fundamentals in emerging markets continue to be supportive and many of the market uncertainties of the past year are being resolved: the electoral cycle is substantially complete and has resulted in favourable reformist agendas in many countries; geopolitical risk is evident but isolated; and the US Treasury market has reacted in a measured way to the increasing prospect of higher short term rates. This provides a firm footing for Ashmore's investment processes to take on risk and to deliver long-term investment performance for clients," Coombs said in a statement.
According to Ashmore, all of its investing themes were hurt by the market weakness at the end of the quarter. Bonds across all fixed income themes performed relatively well, the asset manager said, but a stronger US dollar hurt local currency returns. This meant that investment performance was weakest in local currency and blended debt, Ashmore said.
The group said that subscriptions were at a comparable level to the same period a year ago, but an increase in redemptions late in the period resulted in the net outflow for the quarter.
The local currency, blended debt and corporate debt themes each delivered net inflows, Ashmore said. However, the company noted net outflows in the overlay/liquidity, equities and external debt themes, while "modest" outflows continued from the Japanese multi-strategy retail funds. Assets under management in the alternatives theme reduced through realisations and subsequent capital returns to investors.
By Samuel Agini; [email protected]; @samuelagini
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