The drop from inflows of £12.9bn in 2019 was blamed on a drop in client referrals due to Coronavirus pandemic-related restrictions.
Total assets for Schroders’ wealth management division, which includes Benchmark, Cazenove and SPW, were £72bn (2019: £66.7bn).
Net income for the division increased by 24% to £382.7m. Profits before tax and exceptional items increased by 26% to £110.5m, and profit before tax increased to £64.8m (2019: £52.9m).
Cazenove Capital saw £1.2bn in net inflows in 2020. Benchmark capital saw £0.7bn in net inflows.
In a trading update released today Schroders said: “We continued to see good momentum across Wealth Management, with strong revenue growth and continued client demand.
“Growing our Wealth Management business has been a focus for several years. We acquired Benchmark Capital in 2016 and the firm has continued to expand its financial adviser network and has successfully migrated the majority of Schroders Personal Wealth clients onto its platform in 2020.”
The asset management giant added that it feels “good progress” has been made in position SPW for future growth in 2020, with “refreshed leadership and improved infrastructure”.
Schroders Personal Wealth appointed its third CEO in 12 months in September. Former Openwork chief executive Mark Duckworth replaced Peter Hetherington who stepped down recently to pursue other opportunities after just eight months in the job.
In September 2020 Schroders also acquired multi-family office firm Sandaire which added £2.4bn of client assets to its wealth management arm.
The overall asset management group saw net income of £2,179.2m in 2020 (2019: £2,124.8m) with profits before tax and exceptional items rising to £702.5m (2019: £701.2m).
Net flows for the business were £42.5bn and assets under management increased 15% to a record high of £574.4bn.
Peter Harrison, chief executive of Schroders, said he is proud of the progress the group has made towards ESG investing. He said: “We now incorporate ESG factors into decision-making across our investment range. This fulfils a commitment we made in 2019. De-carbonisation is a critical issue. We are focused on supporting companies in their transition to net zero.”