Liontrust has posted outflows of more than £4.8bn in its full year results to 31 March 2023, compared with £2.5bn inflows the previous year.
Overall performance suffered, with profits, earnings and assets under management all falling from the company's March 2022 levels, it revealed today (21 June).
Adjusted profits were down 10% to £87.1m, while adjusted diluted earnings dropped 14% to 109.8p per share.
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Liontrust posted £230m in gross profits for the year - down from £231m last year - due to a jump in performance fee revenues, which increased to £18.5m from £12.6m the previous year.
Assets under management and advice also decreased, from £33.5bn in 2022 to £31.4bn by the end of March 2023. Liontrust added AuMA had dropped even further as of 16 June 2023 to £30.5bn.
John Ions, CEO of Liontrust, said the company is now focused on its future growth as the business is in "strong health" despite a challenging year. He noted the planned acquisition of GAM will boost the asset manager's strategic aims to become a "specialist global investment manager".
He added the strength of the business was reflected in its ability to maintain its full year dividend at 72p per share.
"The historic growth of Liontrust has been based on investment teams with rigorous and repeatable processes, strong client relationships, excellent communications, a powerful brand, risk management and a robust infrastructure to support expansion," Ions continued. "These will continue to be the drivers of the business and are why we are optimistic about the future of Liontrust.
"While performance can never be predictable, processes must be. Confidence about investment processes provides belief for the long term despite periods of underperformance, which we have seen for some of our teams over the last year."
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Ions highlighted Liontrust had continued to do "the right things", despite outflows continuing into 2023, and "everyone at Liontrust will reap its rewards in the future".
He added: "The proposed acquisition of GAM will help us achieve our strategic objectives through the global distribution footprint, expansion of asset classes, processes and investment capability, and the combined business infrastructure.
"The collective scale of and expertise across the enlarged group will provide financial stability and certainty to GAM's clients and shareholders. Combining the two businesses will give a stronger platform for future growth that will benefit clients, shareholders and employees of both Liontrust and GAM. This is shown by GAM's investment managers publicly endorsing the proposed acquisition by Liontrust.
"Growing a business is never a smooth line upwards as we have seen recently. The opportunities for Liontrust are clear, however, and we are confident that we have the investment capability, distribution, brand, business processes and commitment to take advantage of them."
