Abrdn Plc saw its assets drop to a new low after clients pulled more money from its funds.
The Edinburgh-based firm recorded net outflows of £5.2 billion ($6.6 billion) in the six months through June, the firm said in a statement Tuesday. That compares with an average £3.08 billion of outflows forecast by analysts polled by Bloomberg. Assets dropped to £495.7 billion from £500 billion at the end of 2022.
“The business has been reshaped to deliver greater resilience, while getting set to take advantage of fast moving sectoral and macroeconomic factors,” said Chief Executive Officer Stephen Bird, who has been trying to diversify the firm away from purely traditional asset management. “There is still work to do to complete our transformation.”
To stop it bleeding assets, Bird has been trying to diversify the firm and simplify its asset management business. Restructuring has been going on for several months and recently the firm’s once flagship Global Absolute Return Strategies fund, which at its 2016 peak reached £27 billion, was merge into another fund after losing more than 90% of it assets.
Read more: Abrdn Appoints Windsor as New CFO, Closes Former Flagship Fund
Last month Abrdn appointed Aviva Plc veteran Jason Windsor as its new chief financial officer after Stephanie Bruce left earlier this year. In recent months, it has also seen a wave of senior departures, including Chris Demetriou, Abrdn’s asset management boss for the US, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Neil Slater, head of real estate and real assets.
Read more: Abrdn’s Head of Real Estate to Depart to Take Helm at Redevco
