LONDON, Jan. 29, 2002 (PRIMEZONE) -- Old Mutual (US) Holdings (LSE:OML), the U.S. holding company for Old Mutual's US asset management businesses, has reported a net inflow of client assets in 2001 of US$4.4 billion, or 2.5% of total assets as at December 31, 2000. That gain was offset by a decline of US$9.4 billion or 5.3% in assets as a result of market movements and by an additional US$23.0 billion or 12.9% from the divestitures of non-strategic affiliates. On December 31, 2001, total assets under management were US$149.9 billion compared to US$177.9 billion on December 31, 2000, an overall decrease of 15.7%.
The total assets under management at December 31, 2001 were split US$76.7 billion Old Mutual Asset Managers (US) ('OMAM(US)'), US$12.6 billion Pilgrim Baxter & Associates and US$60.6 billion other Old Mutual affiliates.
OMAM(US) achieved a strong performance in 2001, with net inflows of client assets of US$6.5 billion, an overall increase of 2.3%. Pilgrim Baxter had net inflows of client assets of approximately US$800 million for the year, despite the challenging market environment.
Strategic planning with other Old Mutual affiliates resulted in seven firms being sold to their existing management teams and two firms reaching agreement to be acquired by third parties.
Scott Powers, Chief Executive of Old Mutual's U.S. asset management operations said: "The U.S. asset management operations of Old Mutual in 2001 produced their best performance in winning client mandates since 1993. The difficult markets of 2001 served to highlight some of our key strengths: the diversity of investment approaches employed by our firms, the depth of experience in our firms' investment management teams, and a structure that allows those investment teams to do their best work by operating autonomously. In 2002 we'll continue to sharpen our focus and develop distribution synergies among our firms to take advantage of all those strengths."