Rathbone Brothers funds under management rise 14%

Rathbone Brothers posted a 14.3% rise in full-year funds under management and administration on Thursday but a decline in inflows.

In an update for the year to the end of December 2019, the wealth manager said FUMA rose to £50.4bn from £44.1bn the year before. However, total net inflows slumped to £0.6bn from £8.5bn in 2018, which included the impact of £6.8bn of acquired funds under management and administration following the acquisition of wealth manager Speirs and Jeffrey.

Gross organic inflows in the investment management segment came to £3.3bn from £3.8bn the year before "in spite of weaker investor sentiment and no reoccurrence of the larger shorter term mandates won in 2018".

Gross outflows, meanwhile, rose to £3.9bn from £2.7bn. Rathbones said the final quarter of last year saw the exit of some lower margin mandates following the integration of Speirs & Jeffrey and additional outflows as some pension and other institutional mandates were repositioned by trustees.

Full-year net inflows in Unit Trusts increased to £943m from £543m. The company said these were "“particularly strong" against a difficult market backdrop for asset managers.

"Although we continue to expect macro-economic conditions to drive volatility more generally across investment markets in the shorter term, we remain focussed on pursuing the strategic objectives we set out in October 2019," it said.

At 1000 GMT, the shares were up 0.7% at 2,145p.