F&C assets fall after net outflow
venerdì, 27 aprile 2007 9.36
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By Laurence Fletcher

LONDON (Reuters) - F&C Asset Management said on Friday its assets under management fell to 102.7 billion pounds at the end of March from 104.1 billion pounds at the end of December.

In the first quarter, the firm (FCAM.L: Quotazione, Profilo) had a net outflow of 2.8 billion pounds, it said.

This included a 1.6 billion-pound net outflow from insurance funds and a 1.1 billion-pound net outflow from institutional funds.

Fixed interest assets fell to 52.7 billion pounds from 54 billion pounds at the end of December, while money market assets dropped to 4.4 billion pounds from 5.4 billion pounds.

However, equity assets rose to 38.8 billion pounds from 38.2 billion pounds, while alternative investments also rose slightly.

In March F&C reported a big fall in annual underlying earnings and said it had set an earnings per share growth target of 50 percent from 2007 to 2009, part of a three-year turnaround plan to boost investment in higher-margin products.

While many UK-based fund firms have benefited from rising stock markets in recent years, some groups have seen their assets shrink as traditional clients like pension funds have switched to using a range of asset managers instead of only one to run their investments.

F&C, which is 51 percent owned by insurer Friends Provident, was created in 2004 from F&C Asset Management's reverse takeover of ISIS Asset Management.