Martin Gilbert’s asset manager AssetCo changed its name on Friday to River Global — a day after the investment firm announced its results for the year ended September 30, 2024, showing active equity assets under management amounted to £2.8 billion (2023: £2.4bn) “with the rise in assets bucking industry trends.”

Operating loss for continuing business for the year was £3.3 million, improving on the operating loss of £7.7 million for the previous year. 

Gilbert said: “The financial year ended 30 September 2024 was a challenging one for both the industry and AssetCo. Nonetheless our results for the year show us continuing to close the gap towards profitability with a significantly reduced operating loss for continuing business of £3.3m.

“UK investor funds under management in active equities experienced persistent net outflows across the industry amounting to some £20bn for FY23/24. The group is not immune to this and further action on cost saving is in hand as a result. This is facilitated in particular by the successful consolidation of certain back office services which, after some delay, was successfully achieved for the group’s open-end funds towards the end of February.

“We were pleased to see an encouraging start to our joint initiative with leading global fund manager, Jonathan Knowles, previously of Capital International Group – this being one of the two initiatives that we signalled with our interim results. The second such initiative, working with an established overseas wealth manager, is well advanced and we hope to commence operations later in our financial year …

“While retaining our valuable interest in Parmenion we have focussed our attention during the year on rationalising and positioning our River Global equities business to weather the on-going and extremely challenging conditions for active equity asset managers.”