Man Group reported that assets under management for the firm fell 4% throughout 2022, which it blamed on poor investment performance and a stronger US dollar.

The asset manager recorded $3.1bn of net inflows during the year, which it calculated as 5.3% ahead of the industry.

However this was offset by $8.4bn of "combined negative impacts" from investment performance, and foreign exchange rates and other movements owing to a stronger US dollar. 

Assets under management for the firm sat at $143.3bn at the end of the year as a result, a 4% fall compared to 31 December 2021.

Man Group also said today that John Cryan, who has served as a director of the firm since January 2015 and as chair of the board since January 2020, has decided to retire from the board by the end of this year.

Results

The firm reported that absolute investment performance across product categories was a 1.5% fall. 

Looking across strategies, the firm's absolute return strategies were up 8.7%, driven by positive performance from AHL Alpha (+11.0%) and AHL Dimension (+8.8%). 

Man Group's total return and long-only strategies were impacted "significantly" by the big sell-off in market beta, the group said, with overall investment performance of -8.4% and -7.6%, respectively. 

AHL TargetRisk performance (-16.7%)  was an example of this, reflecting its exposure to fixed income and equity markets, which delivered negative returns in tandem during the year for  the first time since the 1990s. 

AHL TargetRisk's proprietary risk overlays were active throughout most of the year and "helped mitigate drawdowns during the sharpest sell-offs", the firm said, significantly reducing exposure when inflation worries were at their peak, contributing around 6% to returns. 

Luke Ellis, Man Group's chief executive, said in a statement: "One clear, dominant force drove financial markets in 2022: inflation."

"Combined with other factors, like the aftershocks of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, this resulted in 2022 becoming "one of the worst years on record for a 60/40 portfolio", he added.

Looking ahead, Ellis said the difficulties faced by traditional asset management markets during 2022 "make a strong case for investing in alternatives, where we are a market leader with over 35 years of experience". 

Elsewhere in the results, core profit before tax at the group increased to $779m, compared with $658m in 2021, reaching a 14-year high.

This was driven by growth in management fee earnings and a strong performance fee outcome for a second consecutive year, the group said, as it reported core net management fee revenue growth of 6%.

Statutory profit after tax was $608m,  compared with $487m in 2021, up 25%, while statutory earnings per share were 45.8 cents and core earnings per share were 48.7 cents, the highest in over a decade, the company said.

The board added that it will recommend a final dividend of 10.1 cents per share for the year, resulting in a total dividend of 15.7 cents per share for the year, which is in addition to the $250m of share buyback programmes already announced.