South Africa’s biggest asset manager sitting with R3.15 trillion

Ninety One revealed today that it has grown its assets under management (AUM) to £130.8 billion (R3.15 trillion) despite net outflows in its 2025 financial year.

Ninety One is South Africa’s largest asset manager and is dual-listed on the JSE and the London Stock Exchange.

The investment giant released its results for the year ended 31 March 2025, which showed a strong performance.

Ninety One’s AUM grew from £126.0 billion (R3.03 trillion) in 2024 to £130.8 billion (R3.15 trillion), a nearly 4% increase from the previous year.

This growth came despite net client outflows in the period, although the £4.9 billion (R117.98 billion) of outflows recorded in 2024 is significantly less than the £9.4 billion (R226.33 billion) seen in 2024.

The company explained that, despite recording net outflows for the whole year, it experienced net inflows in the second half of the year, which bolstered its performance.

“This was a year of two halves. The second half of the year reflected a turnaround with net inflows of £0.4 billion, our first positive net flow half-year in two years,” the company said. 

“This followed a tough first half, to end on net outflows of £4.9 billion for the full year. This is an improvement from the prior year’s net outflows of £9.4 billion.” 

“Positive market and currency movements contributed £9.7 billion to more than offset the net outflows, resulting in a 4% increase in assets under management to £130.8 billion.”

Ninety One explained that the outflows recorded in the first half of the year were due to risk aversion that persisted toward public markets and emerging assets. 

Clients rebalanced portfolios and reduced cyclical exposures, resulting in £5.3 billion (R127.62 billion) of net outflows. 

However, in the second half, clients re-engaged across several of the company’s core strategies, and flows responded.

It said equities were the biggest source of net outflows, mainly in global and sustainable equity strategies.

“Despite this, some equity strategies such as emerging markets, international and core global equities recorded positive net flows,” it said.

The company added that fixed income and multi-asset strategies also saw net redemptions.

Despite these positives, Ninety One experienced a slight fall in performance fees, which led to a 1% decline in adjusted operating profit to £187.9 million (R4.52 billion), compared to £190.5 million (R4.59 billion) in 2024.

In addition, an increase in corporation taxes led to a decrease in Ninety One’s basic earnings per share from 18.4 pence (R4.45) in 2024 to 17.2 pence (R4.16) per share.

However, Ninety One still declared a significant final dividend of 6.8 pence (R1.65) per share for shareholders, up from the 6.4 pence (R1.55) dividend declared in 2024.