South Africa’s biggest listed asset manager Ninety One reported a 10% fall in assets under management (AuM) on Wednesday after suffering net outflows of £10.6 billion (or R237 billion*) as clients ditched riskier assets.

Average AuM for the year dropped by 3% to £134.9 billion.

He noted that while clients remained with the company, they opted to either de-risk or reposition their portfolios.

Ninety One reported that all asset classes showed a decline in AuM, with equities, fixed income and multi assets taking the biggest hits. Equities declined 12% to £59.7 billion, while fixed income and multi assets fell by 10%, to £32.9 billion and £22.6 billion, respectively.

The group’s results indicated a sour mood among clients, who contended with a myriad of factors affecting financial markets, including spiking inflation, aggressive rises in interest rates from pandemic lows, and fears hanging over the banking sector in developed markets.

Two-thirds of its outflows were driven by clients fleeing equities – particularly global, Asian and UK equities.

Fixed income, which took pain from emerging market sovereign strategies, saw the second largest chunk of outflows. Meanwhile, outflows in its multi-asset funds were broadly spread.

“Inflows into our fund platform remained healthy while net inflows into Alternative [assets] were driven by the growing interest in our multi-asset credit strategies,” the company said on Wednesday.

Basic earnings per share were down 19% to 18.2 pence, from 22.6 pence per share previously, while basic headline earnings per share fell 15% to 18.2, from 21.4 pence per share.

Headwinds

Du Toit described the past year as “challenging” and marred by significant headwinds.

“At our last interim results, we pointed to risks that could make market conditions less supportive than at the outset of this reporting period,” he said.

“Many of those have materialised and were accentuated by the policy response to persistently higher-than-desired inflation rates.”

Du Toit added that he expects market challenges to continue to linger in the next reporting period.

Ninety One Limited and Ninety One Plc’s share prices were trading over 4% lower following the release of the group’s latest full-year results.