Liontrust continues to struggle with investor outflows despite positive fund returns
Investors continued to pull money from Liontrust’s funds in the first quarter of 2024. In a trading update issued this morning, the asset manager said it had recorded £1.2bn in outflows during the first quarter of 2024.
Despite the massive withdrawals, the company’s assets under management stayed flat during the quarter at £27.8bn. A total of £1.2bn in market gains offset investor outflows
However, over the past 12 months assets under management have fallen £4.5bn, with outflows totalling £6.1bn.
Liontrust tried to boost its asset base last year with the failed £96m attempt to buy Swiss rival GAM last year. Only 33.5 per cent of the firm’s shareholders voted in favour of the takeover, which stopped management from going ahead.
While asset managers have all seen mass withdrawals by investors, Liontrust has been particularly hard hit due to its size, UK focus and the turmoil within the firm.
In the final quarter of last year, investors withdrew £1.7bn from the firm’s funds.
Last quarter’s withdrawals came mainly from the asset manager’s largest offering, UK retail funds. Investors pulled a total of £872m from these funds. Institutional funds saw outflows of £270m and assets at its investment trust division declined by £26m.
The story has been the same throughout the last year, with £4bn alone being pulled from UK retail funds, while £925m has been taken out by institutions.
Most notably, the firm’s alternative funds have seen assets under management drop from £1.1bn in April 2023 to just £236m today due to £821m in investor outflows.
Chief exec John Ions said: “Liontrust has improving investment performance in the short term as well as excellent performance over the long term and it appears the UK and other developed economies have reached peak interest rates.”
He noted that some of Liontrust’s core investment strategies were finally beginning to come back into favour, with its European Dynamic fund seeing assets under management almost double from £747m a year ago to £1.4bn.
“We have put in place the structure to drive sales in the UK over the next few years and are investing in the expansion of our distribution globally,” the firm added.