Quilter’s net inflows slumped to £159m in the fourth quarter of 2022, down from £236m in the three months to 30 September, and from £950m ($1.2bn, €1bn) in Q4 2021, according to a recent trading update.
The firm’s chief executive, Steven Levin, admitted that flows were below what Quilter had wanted to achieve, but the recent pick-up in equity markets, alongside slightly lower bond yields, helped to boost assets under management and administration (AuMA) to £99.6bn, up 3% on 30 September 2022.
However, the quarter’s growth could not mask a difficult 12 months for the firm, at the beginning of which AuMA sat at £111.8bn.
In Quilter’s Affluent segment, which consists mostly of the firm’s investment platform, AuMA fell by 10% in 2022 to £74.9bn, down from £83.3bn in 2021. Net inflows of £1.1bn were reported during the year, a sharp drop from the £2.9bn it attracted the previous year.
The firm’s High Net Worth segment suffered a similar drop in AuMA to £25.5bn from £28.7bn. Net inflows fell to £892m for the year to 31 December 2022, down from the £1bn recorded in 2021. Despite this, Levin said he was particularly pleased with what he deemed to be a “robust” performance for the segment.
At £99.6bn, total AuMA at Quilter is now fractionally above what it was at the end of 2020, with much of the progress in 2021 being erased by the difficult market conditions.
Levin said: “Although net flows for 2022 were below the level we want to achieve, we finished the year on a solid note despite the usual seasonal slowdown towards the end of the quarter.
“More broadly, the Quilter channel continued to deliver consistent flows to our platform and has maintained steady productivity throughout the year. The level of gross new IFA flows onto our platform remains good relative to peers given the market context and overall customer drawdowns remain in-line with historical trends.
“Net flows have been impacted by heightened adviser consolidation across the market. We continued to grow the base of IFAs using our market-leading platform in the quarter and expect incremental flows from this source to build over time,” he added.
The firm’s financial results for 2022 are scheduled to be published on 8 March 2023.
This article first appeared in our sister publication Portfolio Adviser.
