Man Group, the world’s largest traded hedge fund group, reported net inflows of $4.8 billion (€3.9 billion) in the first quarter of this year despite a more challenging trading environment.
The FTSE 250 listed group said in a first quarter trading statement that “weaker” equity markets had impacted the performance of many of its funds.
Nevertheless assets under management rose 3% to $112.7 billion by the end of March, up from $109.1 billion at the end of December.
In the three months to March the firm reported negative investment movement of $1.8 billion and positive foreign exchange movement of $1.2 billion.
“The first quarter of 2018 was a weaker environment for equity markets and momentum strategies,” said chief executive Luke Ellis.
“While this impacted our absolute performance in some areas, outperformance across our long-only and discretionary alternative strategies demonstrated the resilient and diversified nature of our business.
“Looking forward we see continuing interest from clients, however, the institutional nature of our business means that flows are likely to be uneven on a quarter-to-quarter basis.”
The firm said it had completed a $100 million share repurchase scheme announced in October. It also announced that it planned to repurchase a further $100 million of shares and would continue to review potential acquisition opportunities.
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