The first quarter of 2025 was “peculiar” for platforms where asset growth was down despite encouraging sales numbers.
Latest data from the Lang Cat showed advised platforms saw record gross sales of £22.1bn in the first quarter of 2025, representing the highest quarterly total in its records.
However, assets across advised platforms contracted by 0.64 per cent in the quarter, totalling £643.48bn.
But this figure was up 7.10 per cent compared to the same period last year when assets stood at £600.81bn.
The organisation put this down to market volatility around Trump’s announcement of trade tariffs.
Rich Mayor, senior analyst at the Lang Cat, said: “It’s been a peculiar quarter for platform numbers, where despite very encouraging sales numbers, asset growth is down.
“The period of uncertainty surrounding ‘Liberation Day’ in March helped liberate platforms of any quarterly growth. As we’ve seen since, the market has been volatile, with significant changes on a regular basis.”
Mayor added the spike in outflows seen in 2024 in the lead up to the government’s Budget have now settled down.
In the quarter, outflows fell by 3.57 per cent to £616mn, compared with to £16.65bn the previous quarter.
This is the first “meaningful reduction” in outflows since they started rising in the third quarter of 2022.
Record gross sales combined with reduced outflows resulted in the best net sales for advised platforms since Q2 2022, with £5.44bn in Q1 2025.
Mayor added: “We’ve been speaking with advisers to see how they handled the volatility with their clients, and the majority look to have been on the front foot with proactive communications.
“We noted in our State of the Platform Nation that for the past couple of years market movement has formed the bulk of annual platform asset growth. But the volatility we’ve seen recently could mean net sales become all the more important to platform asset growth this year.”
tara.o’connor@ft.com
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