UK - Schroders has lost £6.4bn (€9.5bn) in institutional assets so far this year.

The company today disclosed a net institutional outflow of £1.8bn in the third quarter - this follows the previously disclosed £4.6bn of withdrawals in the first half.

Asset management profit was £48.3m, up from the prior-year's £46.1m, with revenues up to £157.2m from £141.2m.

But costs rose to £108.9m from £95.1m amid what the company called a "year of consolidation".

The company said its total pre-tax profit was virtually unchanged at £64m, against £63.6m a year before.

A company spokesman said: "Schroders has said continually this year that it is a year of consolidation, and that we're investing in IT infrastructure, sales and marketing, and launching many new funds to enable future profit and revenue growth.

"Therefore costs between the third quarter 2005 and the third quarter 2006 have increased for this reason.

"Another reason for the cost increase is that there is a link between costs and revenue - as revenue is linked to performance. Therefore as revenue increases due to good fund performance or fund sales, so do remuneration costs - this is standard across the whole industry.

The reason why revenue and profit have increased, even though there are net outflows, is because Schroders is targeting and selling higher margin specialist products, and the business we're losing as the industry restructures from balanced to specialist is lower margin.