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Trading Update

In brief · summary, not quotable

Net outflows of £1.6bn in Q4 2024; AuMA fell to £24.6bn; cost savings increased to £6m annually.

  • AuMA £24.6 billion (prior £25.956 billion)
  • Net outflows £1.6 billion (prior £1.7 billion)
  • Sustainable Investment team AuMA £9.2 billion
  • Annualised savings target £6.0 million (prior £4.5 million)
Full announcement

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Liontrust Asset Management Plc ("Liontrust" or the "Company"), the specialist independent fund management group, today issues its trading update for the three months ended 31 December 2024 (the "Period").

  • Net outflows of £1.6 billion in the Period (2023: £1.7 billion).
  • Assets under management and advice ("AuMA") were £24.6 billion as at 31 December 2024, a decrease over the Period of 5.3%.
  • AuMA as at 9 January 2025 were £24.7 billion.
  • The Sustainable Investment team's 10 UK-domiciled funds (£8.5 billion of AuMA) to adopt the "Sustainable Focus" label.
  • Business Transformation Programme progresses with increased annualised savings identified.

Commenting, John Ions, Chief Executive Officer, said:

"Liontrust will be adopting the FCA's Sustainability Focus label for all 10 of the UK-domiciled funds managed by the Sustainable Investment team with a total of £8.5 billion in AuMA. Improving trust and transparency of sustainable investment funds will play a key role in clients' decision making. Clients will benefit from Liontrust having one of the broadest fund ranges with SDR labels, comprising equity, fixed income and managed funds.

Liontrust and other active managers are still facing external headwinds, but we believe the impact will lessen over the course of 2025. The Group continues to make good progress towards our strategic objectives and there is increasingly strong fund performance.

Net outflows during the fourth quarter of 2024 were significantly concentrated in October at around 50% of the total, mirroring the broader UK funds industry which experienced its third worst month on record ahead of the Chancellor's Autumn Budget.

We are seeing stronger performance across our investment teams. For example, the European Dynamic Fund was the best performer in its sector over five years1, the three funds managed by Global Innovation are in the first or second quartile over one, three and five years1, and the UK Equity and UK Focus funds are in the first or second quartile over one, three and five years1. Mark Hawtin and his team took over management of the Global Alpha and Balanced funds in 2024 and they are both in the first quartile of their sectors over one year1. This team will be taking on a Liontrust branded long/short fund later this month to add to our alternatives capabilities.

The Liontrust brand continues to be well recognised, scoring highly for perception, familiarity, communications, client service, and advertising recall and attribution (Source: Research in Finance).

There are reasons to believe we are entering a more positive period for active investors. There is currently an extreme concentration of the mega caps in the US market, which is at its highest level for a century. Any broadening of returns from equity markets, greater focus on valuations and lower index returns going forward will present opportunities for price discovery among active investors.

We have continued to strengthen and develop our operating platform to make Liontrust more effective and efficient. We are deepening our relationship with BNY to provide us with a scalable and cutting-edge trading solution and now expect annualised savings of up to £6 million, up from £4.5 million which we announced alongside our half year results in November 2024.

We are well placed to take advantage of opportunities ahead. Alongside our proven investment processes, market-leading brand, strong client relationships, communications and engagement, we are making further progress in achieving our strategic objectives of enhancing the client experience and outcomes, diversifying the fund range, broadening the client base, and strengthening our technological, data and digital capability."

1 Source: Financial Express to 10 January 2025, bid-to-bid basis, net of fees, and Liontrust.

Sustainability Disclosure Requirements and Investment labelling regime ("SDR")

Liontrust has received approval from the Financial Conduct Authority ("FCA") for SDR related changes to the investment objectives and policy, and will adopt the "Sustainability Focus" label for the following 10 funds which have an aggregate AuMA of £8.5 billion:

  • Liontrust Sustainable Future Monthly Income Bond Fund;
  • Liontrust Sustainable Future Cautious Managed Fund;
  • Liontrust Sustainable Future Corporate Bond Fund;
  • Liontrust Sustainable Future Defensive Managed Fund;
  • Liontrust Sustainable Future European Growth Fund;
  • Liontrust Sustainable Future Global Growth Fund;
  • Liontrust Sustainable Future Managed Fund;
  • Liontrust Sustainable Future Managed Growth Fund;
  • Liontrust Sustainable Future UK Growth Fund; and
  • Liontrust UK Ethical Fund.

Liontrust expects to send out notifications to investors in the above funds of the SDR related changes to the investment objectives and Policy by the end of January 2025 and to use the SDR labels from April 2025.

Update on Business transformation programme

We have made progress with our Business transformation programme, for which we provided details when we announced our Half Year results in November 2024.

The work on the operating model is mostly complete. BlackRock's Aladdin platform was implemented in July 2024 and is working well. We now have a much more extensive relationship with BNY's front office and middle office teams and the BNY Data Vault system is embedded in our operating model and is being used day to day with further, business as usual, development ongoing.

As part of our ongoing commitment to enhancing operational efficiency, it is proposed to deepen our strategic relationship with BNY by using its Buyside Trading Solutions for our trading capabilities. This collaboration will allow us to extend our trading capabilities beyond UK trading hours and access more counterparties, with a solution that is scalable and with a partner that is investing heavily in its trading services to ensure that it remains cutting edge.

In November 2024, we announced a proposed reduction of around 25 roles across our business for an annualised saving, if implemented in full, of employee-related, member-related and non-staff-related expenses of around £4.5 million with implementation costs of around £4 million.

Having reviewed the proposed cost efficiencies, further savings have been identified and we are now proposing a further small reduction in roles and non-staff related expenses across our business for annualised savings, if implemented in full, of employee-related, member-related and non-staff related expenses of around £6.0 million. The reductions we announced in November 2024 expect to be completed by end March 2025, the additional reductions identified expect to be completed by the end of September 2025, and implementation costs for the role reductions and non-staff related expenses are now anticipated to be around £4.5 million, which will be mostly incurred in the second half of the current financial year, with the balance in the first half of the next.

Assets under management and advice

On 31 December 2024, our AuMA stood at £24,576 million and were broken down by type and investment process as follows:

ProcessTotalInstitutional Accounts & FundsInvestment TrustsUK Retail Funds & MPSAlternative FundsInternational Funds & Accounts
(£m)(£m)(£m)(£m)(£m)(£m)
Sustainable Investment9,218329-8,523-366
Economic Advantage5,126379-4,667-80
Multi-Asset3,956--3,7918085
Global Equities1,168--1,14622-
Global Innovation862--861-1
Cashflow Solution2,397513-1,539161184
Global Fundamental1,8492251,153471--
Total24,5761,4461,15320,998263716

AuMA as at 9 January 2025 were £24,692 million.

Flows

The net outflows over the Period were £1,553 million (2023: £1,664 million). A reconciliation of fund flows and AuMA over the Period is as follows:

TotalInstitutional Accounts & FundsInvestment TrustsUK Retail Funds & MPSAlternative FundsInternational Funds & Accounts
(£m)(£m)(£m)(£m)(£m)(£m)
Opening AuMA - 1 October 202425,9561,4691,18622,239258804
Net flows(1,553)(43)(19)(1,404)4(91)
Market & Investment performance17320(14)16313
Closing AuMA - 31 December 202424,5761,4461,15320,998263716
Key Fund Performance (Quartile ranking)
UK domiciled funds-
Quartile ranking - Since inceptionQuartile ranking - 5 yearQuartile ranking - 3 yearQuartile ranking - 1 yearInception Date
Economic Advantage funds
Liontrust Special Situations Fund133410/11/2005
Liontrust UK Growth Fund123401/04/1996
Liontrust UK Micro Cap Fund112409/03/2016
Liontrust UK Smaller Companies Fund123408/01/1998
Liontrust Global Smaller Companies Fund434431/12/2007
Sustainable Future funds
Liontrust SF Cautious Managed Fund244423/07/2014
Liontrust SF Corporate Bond Fund333319/02/2001
Liontrust SF Defensive Managed Fund144423/07/2014
Liontrust SF European Growth Fund344319/02/2001
Liontrust SF Global Growth Fund334319/02/2001
Liontrust SF Managed Fund124319/02/2001
Liontrust SF Managed Growth Fund214319/02/2001
Liontrust SF Monthly Income Bond Fund122412/07/2010
Liontrust SF UK Growth Fund344119/02/2001
Liontrust UK Ethical Fund344101/12/2000
Global Innovation funds
Liontrust Global Dividend Fund212120/12/2012
Liontrust Global Innovation Fund123131/12/2001
Liontrust Global Technology Fund211215/12/2015
Global Equity funds
Liontrust Balanced Fund113131/12/1998
Liontrust China Fund432131/12/2004
Liontrust Emerging Market Fund343230/09/2008
Liontrust Global Alpha Fund124131/12/2001
Liontrust India Fund412329/12/2006
Liontrust Japan Equity Fund211122/06/2015
Liontrust Latin America Fund233103/12/2007
Liontrust US Opportunities Fund234331/12/2002
Cashflow Solution funds
Liontrust European Dynamic Fund111215/11/2006
Global Fundamental funds
Liontrust Income Fund122331/12/2002
Edinburgh Investment Trust Plc1-1231/03/2020
Liontrust UK Equity Fund122127/03/2003
Liontrust UK Focus Fund123129/09/2003
Multi-Asset funds
Liontrust Strategic Bond Fund333308/05/2018
Liontrust MA Explorer 35 Fund1--131/12/2002
Liontrust MA Explorer Income 45 Fund2--231/03/2020
Liontrust MA Explorer Income 60 Fund1--127/03/2003
Liontrust MA Explorer 70 Fund2--329/09/2003
Liontrust MA Explorer 85 Fund1--229/09/2003
Liontrust MA Explorer 100 Fund2--229/09/2003
Liontrust MA Monthly High Income Fund342101/05/2012
Liontrust MA UK Equity Fund433312/11/2001
Irish domiciled funds-
Quartile ranking - Since inceptionQuartile ranking - 5 yearQuartile ranking - 3 yearQuartile ranking - 1 yearInception Date
Economic Advantage funds
Liontrust GF Special Situations Fund133408/11/2012
Liontrust GF UK Growth Fund122303/09/2014
Sustainable Future funds
Liontrust GF SF European Corporate Bond Fund232229/05/2018
Liontrust GF SF Global Growth Fund224312/11/2019
Liontrust GF SF Multi Asset Global Fund4-4313/10/2021
Liontrust GF SF Pan-European Growth Fund244214/03/2001
Liontrust GF SF US Growth Fund3--407/07/2023
Cashflow Solution funds
Liontrust GF European Smaller Companies Fund111101/02/2017
Liontrust GF European Strategic Equity Fund111125/04/2014
Multi-Asset funds
Liontrust GF Absolute Return Fund222226/06/2018
Liontrust GF High Yield Fund111108/06/2018
Liontrust GF Strategic Bond Fund122313/04/2018

Source: Financial Express to 31 December 2024 as at 9 January 2025, bid-bid, total return, net of fees, based on primary share class.

Global Fixed Income team moved to the Multi-Asset team on 1 January 2025, the funds managed by the Global Fixed Income team now appear under Multi-Asset funds.

MA Explorer funds had an objective change on 05/04/2023 and rankings are shown from then.

MA Dynamic Passive fund range, MA Blended fund range, Diversified Real Assets Fund and Russia Fund (suspended) are not included as are in an IA sector that is not rankable. GF Pan European Dynamic, GF Global Technology, GF Global Innovation and GF Global Dividend funds are excluded because they were recently launched.

Other information

Cleaned text: letterheads, contacts and legal notices removed. View the original announcement ↗ · Company filings. Not investment advice.

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