Ashmore’s inflows smash forecasts

EMERGING markets investment specialist Ashmore Group said yesterday that clients added $7.3bn of net new money to its range of funds in the first three months of the year, smashing analyst forecasts and sending its shares up by as much as 14%.

The net inflows take assets under management to $77.7bn, the London-based group said in a trading statement, and are far more than it has attracted in recent quarters.

Headed by billionaire Mark Coombs, who led Ashmore’s buyout from Australia and New Zealand Banking Group in 1999, the firm has capitalised on the explosion in investor interest in emerging markets in recent years. Assets under management have more than doubled since mid2010, although it now faces stiffer competition from rivals like Aberdeen Asset Management. Ashmore rose 14% to 405.1p. UK fund managers have benefited from a strong start to the year as investors regain their appetite for investment funds as markets rally.

Ashmore said strong net inflows continued into its local currency, corporate and blended debt products, while equities and external debt suffered modest net outflows. European and US institutional investors bought into its funds during the quarter alongside government-related clients such as sovereign wealth funds in emerging markets.

Negative investment performance took $600m off its assets under management during the quarter, Ashmore also said, but the net inflows still far exceeded previous periods.

In its first quarter of 2012 the group reported $1.2bn of net inflows, while in the final three months it added $1bn. Reuters