LONDON – Clients continued to withdraw money from the Man Group, the world’s largest publicly traded hedge fund, in the final quarter of 2012, raising the stakes for the new chief executive, Emmanuel Roman, to win back investors.
Man Group’s funds had $2.7 billion of net outflows in the three months to Dec. 31, the sixth quarter of outflows in a row. Assets under management fell to $57 billion at the end of December, the company said in a statement on Thursday.
Mr. Roman said in the statement that “2012 was another tough year for Man. Trading conditions were highly challenging as markets continued to be dominated by political uncertainties in Europe and the U.S. and macroeconomic risks. Investor appetite remained muted.”
He also said “business conditions remain very tough”, adding that “sales are likely to remain muted in the first half, and we are yet to see a slowdown in the rate of redemptions.”
The outflows weighed on profit. Man reported a loss of $745 million for last year compared with a profit of $187 million in the year earlier because it took an impairment charge for the acquisition of the hedge fund firm GLG Partners in 2010.
To help attract client money and fix a disappointing performance, the firm named a new chief for its flagship AHL fund. Sandy Rattray, who ran Man’s systematic strategies business, took over from Tim Wong as AHL chief executive this month.
In a separate statement released late on Wednesday, Man said it had suspended a GLG employee, who was arrested by the Financial Services Authority, the British regulator, as part of an insider trading investigation. Man said it was informed by the authority that the investigation concerned private actions by the person, who was one of three people arrested in London on Wednesday.
Man’s shares fell 2.4 percent in afternoon trading in London on Thursday.