T. Rowe Price Group Inc. said clients will likely withdraw more than $26.3 billion in the fourth quarter, extending a streak of redemptions by investors ditching actively managed mutual funds for cheaper products or cash money-market holdings.
The asset manager reported $6.3 billion in preliminary net outflows in October and expects investors to pull more than $20 billion total in November and December, the firm said Friday in a statement.
The Baltimore-based firm, with $1.3 trillion in client assets at the end of October, attributed the elevated outflows in part to a few large client withdrawals.
T. Rowe had already suggested that it anticipated a high level of outflows for the fourth quarter, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analysts Michael Brown and Aidan Hall wrote in a new note. “But clearly the magnitude was not fully appreciated by us and the Street,” they added.
T. Rowe shares slid as much as 4.1% following the warning but pared the losses to 1.7% at 11:22 a.m. in New York.
Many firms in the industry that lean on actively managed strategies have been hit by redemptions over the past few years, leading them to try to expand into cheaper index funds and more specialized alternative assets, including private credit.
T. Rowe said its assets in equity funds, some of which have seen outflows, declined to $668 billion at the end of October.
--With assistance from Bre Bradham.
