Man Group and Jupiter delivered the strongest overall investment returns in Q3, with Liontrust the only other manager with positive returns.
Man Group has quant investing at its core, and Jupiter’s performance also seems to have been driven by its quant strategies. Jupiter’s Q3 update said: “Systematic equities continued to deliver strong performance for our clients and was again a key contributor to net inflows”. It looks like the machines won in Q3!
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Note: Q3 in this post refers to calendar-Q3 of 2026, not Q3 of any individual company’s financial year.
Market context is important. Q3 saw small-ish gains in most equity indexes, although, intra-quarter, there was a significant tech sell-off in July, followed by a recovery.
Quarterly equity index moves: Q3-26
MSCI ACWI: +1.3%
S&P 500: +2.0%
NASDAQ 100: +0.4% (-10.2% between 30 Jun 26 and 29 Jul 26)
FTSE All Share: +1.7%
So, other than Man Group, Jupiter and (to a lesser extent) Liontrust, the returns of equity-dominant asset managers were relatively poor. The tech sell-off certainly impacted Polar’s investment performance (tech & AI strategies make up more than half of its AUM). Polar also has a large biotech fund (c. £2.9bn AUM) which fell c. 8% in Q3.
Fixed income was a different story. Key indexes fell in the quarter.
Quarterly fixed income index moves: Q3-26
Bloomberg Global Aggregate (global bonds): -2.5%
J.P. Morgan EMBI Global Diversified (USD): -3.9% (hard currency)
J.P. Morgan GBI-EM Global Diversified (USD): -0.9% (local currency)
So, the -1.1% performance of Ashmore, an emerging markets fixed income specialist, was actually quite respectable. It would also be fair to highlight that some other managers have significant fixed income operations too, which would have been a drag on their returns, notably: Premier Miton (36% of AUM) and Aberdeen (c. 20% of its institutional & retail wealth AUM).
Strongest flows for quant, tech, & fixed income strategies
Some market context for flows is provided by Calastone’s Fund Flow index, which reported that over Q3, UK investors kept selling out of equity funds and kept buying fixed income funds. For equity funds, September was the 15th month of outflows in the last 16. Fixed income funds, by contrast, saw positive net flows in 13 of those 16 months (including all three months of Q3). Note that Calastone measures flows from UK-based investors into/out of funds domiciled in the UK, so its data is not a direct read on the demand for managers with large international and institutional client bases, such as Man Group.
But Man Group, even with its large equity portfolio, was again ahead of the pack in terms of net flows. It’s been a top performer for some time now. While Polar’s quarterly investment performance was weak, its technology and AI funds continued to attract significant capital. As already mentioned, flows into Jupiter’s systematic strategies were strong.
Ashmore, meanwhile, benefited from demand for both fixed income and emerging markets. Aberdeen and Premier Miton also recorded positive net flows for their fixed income strategies, although both saw net outflows overall.
AUM growth
Putting the above together shows how AUM moved over Q3.
(Ninety One does not disclose its performance and net flow split quarterly, only its total AUM, so is included in the AUM growth chart but omitted from the investment performance and net flow charts.)
Share price moves
So far in October, there has been clear evidence of significant share price moves in reaction to the strength or weakness of the Q3 updates. This was especially evident in those with weak flows: Premier Miton, CLIG, Impax, and Liontrust. Those with solid net flows (Man Group, Jupiter, Ashmore) saw their share prices hold up.
Polar was the notable exception: despite positive net flows, its shares fell c. 11%. With its significant tech exposure, it appears to have been impacted by a fall in tech stocks in October.
November and December are busy periods for UK asset management results. The following managers have an H1 or FY period ending on 30 Sep and will be reporting either interim or full-year results over the coming weeks: Ninety One, Liontrust, Polar, Impax, and Premier Miton.
I’ll be watching these closely and posting updates over this period.
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Disclosure: At the time of writing, Paul Bryant was a shareholder in a number of the companies mentioned in this publication, and covered Impax Asset Management and Polar Capital as an analyst on behalf of Equity Development Limited. Read Equity Development’s research on these companies by clicking on each. And please read this link for the terms and conditions of reading Equity Development’s research.