EUROPE - A 24% rise in inflows helped F&C Asset Management reduce a £3.3bn (€4.9bn) outflow of institutional money in the first six months to £1.6bn.

Monies moving out of the company was part of the expected outflow of £5.2bn announced in January for the whole of 2007, F&C Asset Management stated in its half-year results.

It added the outflows were mainly because of "lower fee Dutch balanced mandates shifting to fiduciary managers, an industry-wide trend in the Netherlands, and were not related to investment performance".

To regain some of the lost ground, F&C Asset Management now confirmed plans IPE had learned in May and said it will present its new fiduciary offerings in last quarter of this year.

"This will better position us to retain existing institutional clients wanting to adopt a fiduciary model and allow us to attract new clients," the manager stated.

The London-based asset manager reported inflows of £1.7bn - up 24% from June last year - and compared to the first quarter of 2007, the second quarter saw 62% more inflows.

This is also reflected in the overall results for the company with a £7.9m profit before tax compared to a loss of £29.2m in the first half of 2006.

Meanwhile, State Street has reported a 20% rise in assets under custody in its half-year report.
The firm saw its assets under custody rise to $13trn (€9.4trn) from $10.9trn in June last year.

Its asset management arm, State Street Global Advisors (SSGA), had $1.93trn in assets under management, up 26% from $1.53trn.

At the beginning of July, State Street completed the acquisition of Investors Financial Services, a Boston-based custody and asset management provider.