On Friday, French asset manager Amundi said it lost 12.9 billion euros ($12.86 billion) in the third quarter. This was due to weak markets and worries about the economy’s future after the war in Ukraine.
At the end of September, the huge money manager said it was in charge of 1.9 trillion euros, which is 2% less than it was three months ago.
During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, asset managers did well because of government and central bank stimulus and pent-up savings.
Related: Fund managers play the long game on inflation.
But the war in Ukraine has hurt the markets and raised the cost of living, which has made it harder for people to buy assets.
“We think our clients’ reluctance to take risks will continue into the next quarter as long as macro-economic uncertainty remains,” CEO Valerie Baudson said in a call with the media.
This week, the German asset manager DWS reported that the amount of money it manages stayed the same in the third quarter, at 833 billion euros.
In a trading statement, Amundi said that its adjusted net income for the quarter went up by 4.7% to 282 million euros. This was because it cut costs and got more money from management fees.
The use of so-called liability-driven investments (LDI) by large fund managers, which involve borrowing a lot of money, caused a liquidity crisis for British pension funds last month. This forced the Bank of England to step in and stabilise the UK government bond markets.
Baudson said that Amundi does not sell these kinds of things.
Related: The week of rate hikes has set markets on course for their worst drop since 2020.
“Nowhere in the world do we have anything like LDI, so it’s not a problem for us.”
