Premier Miton Group plc (LON:PMI) has provided an update on its unaudited statement of Assets under Management for the second quarter of its current financial year.
· Closing AuM of £12.6 billion at 31 March 2021 (31 December 2020: £12.0 billion)
· Net inflows of £193 million during the Quarter
· Financial year to date net inflows of £359 million
Mike O’Shea, Chief Executive Officer, commented:
“The Group’s AuM grew by 19% from the position at 30 September 2020 to end the Period at £12.6 billion. It was pleasing to see the continued growth in AuM and to record a second successive quarter of net positive fund flows.
For the first time in many months, and as we had expected at the time of our last update to shareholders, we saw increasing demand for our UK equity-focused strategies. This sector has been out of favour with investors for some time and it is one where we have a broad and strongly performing range of funds. Should this recent improvement in investor sentiment be maintained, we believe that the Group is well placed to benefit from increasing fund flows given our excellent track record in the area.
Our new Premier Miton Global Smaller Companies Fund was successfully launched on 22 March 2021 and has already attracted good investor interest. We continue to believe that smaller companies represent an area where investors will be able to find value over the coming years and we are confident that our new team will do a very good job for investors.
We look forward to the launch of the Premier Miton European Sustainable Leaders Fund on 10 May 2021. This new fund will focus on companies with strong environmental, social and governance (‘ESG’) profiles and those the fund managers believe offer longer term sustainable growth themes. The fund will be managed by the highly-regarded investment team of Carlos Moreno and Thomas Brown who have successfully managed the £2.4 billion1 Premier Miton European Opportunities Fund since launch in December 2015. As a Group, we currently manage four funds with specific sustainable, ESG or ethical objectives designed to meet increasing demand for a specialist responsible investing approach from our investors.
Finally, during the Quarter, we completed a number of changes to our multi-asset funds with the objective of reducing overall costs for investors. Of the £3.9 billion the Group now manages in multi-asset funds, some £2.2 billion is managed on a multi-manager basis and £1.7 billion is managed through direct investment in underlying securities. We continue to believe that both strategies have a role to play in client portfolios and we are proud of our long-term investment records in both areas. It is also pleasing to see that short-term investment performance for both groups of multi-asset funds is very strong. For those multi-asset funds where an industry sector is an appropriate comparator, we have 97%2 of our AuM performing ahead of median and 94%2 in the first quartile over the last year.”
Assets under Management:
| Opening AuM 1 Oct 2020 £m | Quarter 1 net flows £m | Quarter 2 net flows £m | Year to date net flows £m | Market / investment performance £m | Closing AuM 31 Mar 2021 £m | |
| Equity funds | 5,404 | 196 | 425 | 621 | 1,023 | 7,048 |
| Multi-asset funds | 4,119 | (384) | (243) | (627) | 445 | 3,937 |
| Fixed income funds | 486 | 31 | (11) | 20 | 14 | 520 |
| Investment trusts | 599 | (17) | (1) | (18) | 150 | 731 |
| Segregated mandates | – | 340 | 23 | 363 | 3 | 366 |
| Total | 10,608 | 166 | 193 | 359 | 1,635 | 12,602 |
1 Fund size as at 31 March 2021
2 Source: FE Analytics, data to 31 March 2021 using the main representative post-RDR share class based on Investment Association sector classifications. Performance period relates to the twelve months to 31 March 2021 for the fifteen Premier Miton multi-asset funds, representing £3.5 billion of AuM at the Period end. This figure excludes the Premier Miton Multi-Asset Absolute Return Fund and the Premier Miton Liberation fund range (where sector comparisons are inappropriate)
