Pridham Report: Fidelity and LGIM gain top three spot for gross and net sales in 2022

According to the latest Pridham report, last year saw net annual flows at their lowest level for many years as investors pulled back from risk assets. However, redemptions slowed in the fourth quarter. 

The market was still dominated by passive products in 2022, with tracker fund sales supporting new business among the top three managers.

At £28.6bn, Blackrock managed to attract the highest gross new retail sales for the ninth consecutive year. However, when accounting for outflows, the world’s largest asset manager dropped to fourth place, with £1.9bn in net new sales. 

The net retail sales ranking was topped by Fidelity, which attracted £3.6bn, followed by LGIM and HSBC Asset Management, which gained £3bn and £2.7bn in new net business respectively. 

Pridham Report: Continued outflows drive shake-up in net fund sales ranking

Rathbones, EdenTree, Hargreaves Lansdown, Orbis Investments and Aegon Asset Management also attracted enough net retail sales to make it into the top ten.

In the fourth quarter of the year, Royal London Asset Management rose to the top three, having seen significant demand from UK investors for its sustainable fund range and strong interest from bond investors for its short-dated fixed income and money market funds. 

The fourth quarter also saw a return to above average levels of new business for bond funds after significant outflows at the start of the year. 

Among those managers benefiting from the reallocation to fixed income was M&G, which moved into the top ten tables for both gross and net sales in the fourth quarter. 

Hargreaves Lansdown, Rathbones, Orbis Investments and Artemis also made it to the top ten in the fourth quarter, while EdenTree, AllianceBernstein and Allianz Global Investors lost their spot.

Despite equities reporting net outflows across the industry last year, some managers were successful in luring new assets in the last quarter of the year.

Record £25.7bn pulled from funds in 2022

Retail demand for US equities benefited JPMorgan Asset Management, and its top seller in 2022 was the JPM US Equity Income fund. Strong sales of equities funds were also reported by Baillie Gifford, Jupiter, Schroders and Liontrust.

Following Blackrock, LGIM, Fidelity and HSBC AM in the gross retail sales table for 2022 were Royal London AM, JP Morgan AM, Liontrust, Schroders, Jupiter and Baillie Gifford. 

Anna Pridham, co-editor of The Pridham Report, said: “Gross sales are the true measure of how much new money asset management groups are attracting and in uncertain times, having a strong brand and a compelling product offering is often what sets the successful managers apart.

“However, many of these groups have mature business on their books so they also suffer from natural outflows, even at the best of times.”