GQG Partners lost almost US$4 billion in outflows during 2025 although investment performance helped to maintain funds under management (FUM).
In an FUM update for the 12-month period, it said FUM rose from US$153 billion ($228 billion) at the start of 2025 and rose 7 per cent to US$163.9 billion at the end of the year.
This was achieved despite the firm reporting US$3.9 billion in outflows, including US$2.1 billion in December when all its asset categories reported outflows.
The fund manager had particularly suffered in the second half of the calendar year with outflows of more than US$1 billion occurring in multiple months.
The worst-affected sector over the year was emerging markets which saw US$3.4 billion in outflows during the year followed by global strategies which lost US$1.7 billion and US equities which lost US$1.1 billion.
Its international strategies reported positive flows of US$2.4 billion.
However, investment performance was able to add US$14.8 billion to the overall FUM, particularly in its international strategies which saw investment performance add US$11.8 billion.
In an ASX statement, GQG said: “We maintained our defensive positioning through year-end, consistent with our goal to protect client assets from what we perceive as extended valuations, deteriorating fundamentals and macroeconomic uncertainty. As a result, we experienced relative underperformance across all our strategies for the year versus our benchmark.”
Part of the reason for the outflows is caused by fund underperformance with its funds bucking market trends and betting against artificial intelligence.
As of 30 November, its Global Quality Equity fund had lost 6.1 per cent over one year versus returns of 17.3 per cent by the MSCI ACWI ex Tobacco Index benchmark.
Discussing its stance on AI, a whitepaper from the firm issued a stark warning on OpenAI’s long-term business viability, arguing the company’s economics are fundamentally unsound despite rapid revenue growth, mass user adoption and its central role in the global AI infrastructure boom.
In Dotcom on Steroids: Part II, it contended OpenAI’s business “appears commoditised” and is “hyper capital-intensive,” with rising compute costs and intensifying competition from both closed- and open-source developers.
“We believe it will struggle to build a sustainable business over time,” the paper stated.
At the start of the year, GQG Partners appointed a chief financial officer to replace Melodie Zakaluk who departed in early 2025. Its former deputy CFO, Charles Falck, was promoted to the CFO role, having joined GQG in late 2016.
He has over 20 years of investment management experience, including a stint as global chief operating officer at Vontobel Asset Management, where he oversaw global infrastructure spanning investment services, product management, risk, legal and business analytics.
