By Iain Withers
LONDON (Reuters) -British money manager Aberdeen reported another quarter of outflows on Wednesday and flagged that it expected a further 4.5 billion pound ($6 billion) client withdrawal by the end of the year, as the firm works to revive its fortunes.
Chief executive Jason Windsor is pursuing a turnaround strategy focused on trimming costs and sharpening Aberdeen’s wealth credentials. He also rebranded the firm from its widely mocked truncated ‘abrdn’ name earlier this year.
The company reported net outflows of 500 million pounds for the three months to September, well down on the 3.1 billion pulled out in the same period last year, but that represented a deterioration on the prior quarter.
Aberdeen flagged that it faced a 4.5 billion pound client redemption from a “very low margin” quant mandate in the fourth quarter.
Analysts at JPMorgan said they expected a negative share reaction on the “overall poor flows”, although they noted that rebounding markets had boosted the company’s assets under management.
Aberdeen’s largest client Phoenix also said in September it planned to pull 20 billion pounds of assets in-house over time.
Assets under management gained 5% to 542.4 billion pounds over the three-month period.
The company reiterated its targets, including to cut 150 million pounds of costs by the end of this year.
($1 = 0.7451 pounds)
(Reporting by Iain Withers; Editing by Joe Bavier)
