Asset class view
- Mixed-assets funds were the most popular asset class, taking £7.02bn.
- Bond funds’ YTD redemptions were £8.55bn.
Active v passive
- Equity passive mutual funds attracted £3.31bn as their ETF peers took £620m.
- Passive bond mutual funds lost £3.07bn while their ETF equivalents netted £98m.
Classifications
- The month’s top-seller was Money Market GBP (£5.09bn), followed by Equity US (£3.8bn).
- Bond GBP Corporates (-£1.31bn), Bond Global Corporates LC (-£1.02bn), and Bond Global USD (-£997m) suffered the largest redemptions over the month.
Sustainable fund flows
- Equity was the most popular sustainable asset class, attracting £1.07bn (24.3% of the flows to the asset class).
- Sustainable bond flows suffered redemptions of £1.07bn while their conventional equivalents shed £5.26bn.
Asset manager view
- Aberdeen was April’s top money taker, netting £4.67bn, with large flows to its MyFolio mixed-assets range.
Flows by Asset Class
Three-year flows
Chart 1: Asset Class Flows, 36 Months, to April 2025 (£bn)
Source: LSEG Lipper
Developed market yield curves steepened, as the short end benefit from policy easing, and the long end driven up by issuance and tariff-driven inflation concerns. That should make bonds more attractive and money market funds (MMFs) less so. That’s not what’s happened in April, with bond fund redemptions being the highest over chart 1’s 36-month period, exceeding that of October 2022 (-£6.33bn versus -£6.29bn, respectively). This is the third consecutive month of bond outflows, and YTD redemptions for the asset class were £8.55bn.
A similarly counterintuitive trend was seen with equity flows. In April, the IMF revised down its global growth forecast for 2025 from 3.3% in January to 2.8%, as markets were rocked with tit-for-tat tariff impositions. These adverse conditions for equities saw the highest inflows for the asset class since last November: £4.41bn, the first positive month for equities since that date, leaving net flows for the year more or less flat at £75m.
Mixed-assets funds are the most successful YTD long-term asset class, netting £7.96bn, with £7.02bn of this coming in April.
Overall, net flows YTD were £12.56bn, although MMFs took £13.6bn, leaving long-term assets having shed £1.05bn.
Active versus Passive
Chart 2: Asset Class Flows, Active and Passive, April 2025 (£bn)
Source: LSEG Lipper
Mixed-assets funds took £7.02bn, with all but £122m netted by active strategies. MMFs’ £5.43bn was similarly dominated by active money.
There was a high return dispersion across equity markets over the month—an environment generally thought to be conducive to stock picking. However, passives still dominate equity flows, with these vehicles taking £3.93bn of the £4.41bn. Commodity funds took £114m, despite the asset class’s poor month as markets factored in a lower-growth trajectory for the global economy.
Meanwhile, real estate funds shed £122m, alternatives lost £146m, and bonds haemorrhaged £6.33bn, split fairly evenly between active funds (-£36bn) and passives (-£2.98bn).
ETFs and Passive Mutual Funds
Chart 3: Passive Asset Class Flows, Mutual Funds v ETFs, April 2025 (£bn)
Source: LSEG Lipper
Passive mutual funds took £348m while ETFs netted £803m.
Equity passive mutual funds attracted £3.31bn as their ETF peers took £620m. Passive bond mutual funds lost £3.07bn while their ETF equivalents attracted a slim £98m.
Flows by Classification
Largest inflows
Chart 4: Largest Positive Flows by LSEG Lipper Global Classification, April 2025 (£bn)
Source: LSEG Lipper
The FTSE 250, Asia Pacific, Eurozone, and Japan indices outperformed FTSE All-World, while broader Europe, Emerging, Russell 1000, FTSE 100, and Russell 2000 lagged the global benchmark, according to FTSE Russell analysis. Equity US Small & Mid Caps have suffered considerable selling YTD globally, but UK investors only sold off £32m-worth of this classification. Their large-cap peers don’t seem to have suffered too much from concerns over their viability, and investors may well have chosen to take advantage of the volatility to top up their allocations.
Source: LSEG Lipper
The first two classifications are in line with the previous month, the top-seller being Money Market GBP (£5.09bn), followed by Equity US (£3.8bn). Of the latter figure, £2.92bn was allocated to passive funds, including the top-three funds in the table below. While passive inflows are the norm for developed market equity markets, they lagged in 2024, with active funds taking the bulk of assets. That “US exceptionalism” has been challenged in 2025—even if flows to the market haven’t—with passives again most popular.
Source: LSEG Lipper
Mixed Asset GBP Aggressive (£2.93bn), Mixed Asset GBP Balanced (£2.42bn), and Mixed Asset GBP Conservative (£1.37bn) all fared well over the month. The former has been in favour over the past couple of years, although Balanced and Conservative had seen outflows over the period, likely a reaction to losses on the fixed-income portion of their portfolios as rates rose in 2022, coupled with investors going from MA bond proxies to the real thing. Note, however, that one firm—Aberdeen—has taken much of these flows (£4.67bn: see chart 7).
While European investors have been increasing their European equity allocations over the year so far, the UK hasn’t joined the trend, with Equity Europe ex UK taking a mere £28m in April, and redemptions of £2.95bn over Q1 2025.
Largest Outflows
Chart 5: Largest Outflows by LSEG Lipper Global Classification, April 2025 (£bn)
Source: LSEG Lipper
While bond performance was mostly positive, and European government and corporate bond sectors supported by falling ECB rates, bond classifications suffered heavily over the month. Bond GBP Corporates (-£1.31bn), Bond Global Corporates LC
(-£1.02bn), and Bond Global USD (-£997m) led the charge down for the month
Despite outperforming year to date, Equity UK (-£888m), Equity UK Income (-£461m), and Equity UK Small & Mid Cap (-£387m) continued their downward trend. In contrast, despite heavy market falls over the month Equity China and Equity Greater China suffered combined losses of £14m.
Also—moving further off piste—despite gold surging with a sustained flight to quality, Equity Sector Gold & Precious Metals saw outflows of £31m.
Sustainable Fund Flows
Chart 6: Sustainable Asset Class Flows, April 2025 (£bn)
Source: LSEG Lipper
Net sustainable flows for the month were just £40m, or 2.2% of the total.
Equity was the most popular sustainable asset class in April, attracting £1.07bn (24.3%) of the money overall. The pattern of US and Global allocations in the table below is quite characteristic of the flows for the month.
Source: LSEG Lipper
While mixed-assets funds were the only asset class in positive territory in March, they have clearly benefited from the asset class’s broader upswing in April, netting just £127m of the £7bn as a whole. Nevertheless, they are still the second-most popular sustainable asset class overall for the month.
Source: LSEG Lipper
Meanwhile, sustainable bond flows suffered redemptions of £1.07bn, while their conventional equivalents shed £5.26bn.
The Sustainable Fund Flows section has a narrower and stricter focus than those which indicate some form of ESG strategy in their fund documentation—to a smaller group of sustainable funds, defined as all SFDR article 9 funds plus all Lipper Responsible Investment Attribute funds reduced to those containing indicative sustainable keywords in the fund name.
Flows by Promoter
Chart 7: Largest Positive Flows by Promoter, April 2025 (£bn)
Source: LSEG Lipper
Aberdeen was April’s top money taker, netting £4.67bn, as its MyFolio fund range went on a tear for the month, as the asset manager’s mixed-assets funds attracted £4.75bn.
Source: LSEG Lipper
Vanguard takes second place for the month, with net flows of £1.77bn, with £1.9bn to equity funds and mixed-assets funds taking £256m. Meanwhile, HSBC saw inflows of £1.52bn, with £977m to MMFs, £477m to equity funds and £231m to mixed assets. Both companies suffered fixed income outflows, in line with the month’s trends at asset class level
Source: LSEG Lipper
