Legg Mason has seen a pretty significant decline in assets under management over the past year. One year ago, it managed $922.8 billion. Today, that number is $656.9 billion. That big haircut was in part caused by big declines in the markets over the past year. But a significant amount also came from clients pulling their money out of Legg Mason funds.
But that trend seems to be slowing. In the most recent quarter, Legg Mason saw $8 billion of client money leave the firm. Not great at a time when the markets have stabalized and actually performed better. But a big improvement over the double digit declines the firm experienced in recent quarters, including the $77 billion loss of business in the quarter ended December.
At first blush, the news at Legg Mason looked pretty encouraging – the company late Monday reported net income of $50.1 million and, as it noted in the second paragraph of its press release, assets under management rose 4% in the most recent quarter.
