Axa Investment Managers saw a sharp fall in net inflows last year – but said this had been expected and was in low-margin business.
The decline was mainly due to inflows at the firm’s joint ventures, including in China where some products had matured and not been replaced due to regulatory changes.
Net inflows fell to €7.9 billion in 2017 from €56.4 billion the year before, but net revenues increased by €77 million to €1.3 billion.
Axa IM’s results, released as part of its insurance company parent Axa Group results today, show that assets under management increased 4% to €746 billion, and the firm said that 71% of its cross-border funds were in the first and second quartiles for performance in 2017.
There were “robust inflows” from the unit-linked business from the Axa Group, which also helped to reinforce partnerships with global distributors and resulted in further success with third-party insurers, Axa IM said.
“2017 was a particularly strong year for us in terms of successes for our institutional business, leveraging our close relationship and the work we do for the Axa Group, while we also made advances in the retail space,” said Andrea Rossi, chief executive.
In 2018, Axa IM will continue to focus on its multi-assets business, which was “particularly successful” with institutional clients in Italy and France in 2017.
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