Buoyed by £7 billion in global inflows, M&G Investments pushes further into Asia-Pacific

[SINGAPORE] Amid macroeconomic volatility, M&G Investments is continuing its push into the Asia-Pacific after bringing in £7 billion (S$12 billion) in net inflows in 2025, its highest global inflows from external asset management clients since 2019.

The firm began its global push three to four years ago, when group chief executive officer Andrea Rossi joined M&G in 2022, and Joseph Pinto joined M&G Investments – the group’s asset-management arm – as CEO in 2023.

“The new management decided to have an aggressive growth plan and ambition. We were very clear. We wanted to go into private markets. We wanted to go into Asia… We did exactly what we said we were going to do. And it’s the proof that the strategy is working,” said Pinto during an exclusive interview in Singapore.

In its 2025 annual report, the London-based insurer attributed the net inflows to the outperformance of its institutional funds against benchmarks and the growth of its European and Asian businesses. Around 84 per cent of its institutional funds outperformed benchmarks over three years, compared with 79 per cent in 2024.

Additionally, nearly 60 per cent of M&G Investments’ third-party assets under management and administration (AUMA) now come from clients outside the UK – up from 37 per cent five years ago.

Part of the Asia growth was driven by the firm’s partnership with Japanese insurer Daiichi Life in 2025, which is expected to bring in US$6 billion of new business flows to M&G over the next five years, according to the annual report.

Similarly, the partnership is expected to bring US$2 billion in new business flows to Daiichi Life, which will also consider distributing M&G products in Japan and Asia as part of the deal.

The partnership is part of Daiichi Life’s agreement to acquire an around 15 per cent stake in M&G, subject to regulatory approval.

“It’s been one year now, and we’ve been able to raise about a billion dollars, roughly… I’m very pleased with the pace. The partnership is multidimensional… They’ve selected a number of strategies to start with fixed income and also private markets for the first year, and now we are expanding. We want to look at other asset classes (such as equity),” said Pinto.

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In 2025, M&G Investments had £345.2 billion AUMA, of which £162.3 billion was managed on behalf of the life insurance business, £109 billion for third-party institutional clients and £73.2 billion for wholesale clients.

Being strategic on Apac

The £7 billion in external asset management flows came from a broad spectrum of sources across European and Asian clients, which has given M&G the confidence to invest further in Apac, added Pinto.

Third-party AUMA from European clients grew by 20 per cent and that from Asian clients grew by 9 per cent between 2025 and 2024, according to the annual report.

Pinto said that the company has invested in the new distribution team in Asia and has a new head of sales for Apac. It also has more resources in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. “We are going to also add a sales individual in Australia... We do have some Australian clients, but we used to mostly fly in and fly out. But from now on, we want to cover those clients directly, domestically.”

The company, in November 2023, hired Amy Cho as Apac head and CEO of M&G Investments Singapore. In May 2024, it brought in Lesley Lo as head of institutional distribution for Apac – she is based in Hong Kong.

The firm has had an office in Australia since 2019, which has mostly focused on real estate investments. “So we are expanding the activity there to have a sales rep office on top of it. So that’s a very well-structured strategy that we’ve been deploying,” Pinto added.

Within Apac, the firm leans on six bases – Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia – from which employees can visit other Asian countries in which M&G sees opportunity.

“For example, I’m going to Kuala Lumpur early next week. There are also (prospective clients) we are talking to over there, institutional clients, mostly. And there are also other areas,” he said.

He noted that China is also attractive, as it is among the countries with big institutions that M&G wants to cover.

Back to basics: diversification

In spite of geopolitical uncertainty, clients are still keen to invest in the long term, Pinto said.

“We have not seen any panic from clients at this stage. (There are) some questions, in some areas; but, overall, clients still want to deploy and invest. We all learnt the lesson from last year with the tariffs, if you remember… (US President Donald Trump’s) Liberation Day, when markets went down massively – and whoever decided to be risk-off at that time and not reinvest missed the rebound.”

He added: “The key – it’s very boring, by the way – but it’s called diversification. We go all the way back to basics. We learnt the lesson, again, last year – the need to diversify a bit from the US. That’s why we’ve seen a lot of flows in European assets, in Asian assets from clients because they were overly exposed to the US.”

Diversification also comes in the form of asset-class exposure. M&G Investments managed £263.7 billion in assets across public assets including equity, fixed income and multi-assets, and £80.8 billion in private assets such as private credit, infrastructure and private equity in 2025.

“We mostly deal with alternatives with institutional clients. So probably the book of clients we have – more than 98 plus per cent is in the hands of institutional clients,” he said.

“We launched a couple of strategies in Europe, such as a European long-term investment fund, or ELTIF, using the European regulation. And also we’re launching an LTAF (long-term asset fund) using the UK regulation.”

M&G in 2025 received regulatory approval for an LTAF that would give defined contribution pension schemes in the UK access to a diversified private-credit strategy. The firm also launched the M&G Corporate Credit Opportunities ELTIF in 2023, which had 1.04 billion euros (S$1.5 billion) in assets as at April 2026.

“It’s still early days, and clients are still happy. We’ve been very cautious on the liquidity terms, on the gating terms, and we’ve been doing a lot of education. It’s a best-of-private-credit investing into leverage loans and direct lending,” noted Pinto.

He added that the team takes the time to educate intermediaries and clients about the move to diversify from public credit to private credit, particularly amid news of fund-redemption curbs earlier this year.

The curbs did not worry M&G too much, though.

“We are not as exposed as some of our peers. That’s why we are not that concerned by what we’ve seen in the press… Our structure is not leveraged, which does make a difference versus what made the headlines in the US with those leveraged structures – the BDCs (business development companies),” Pinto said.

“We have very robust underwriting processes in private credit in particular; we have our own credit rating based on the strong credit research capabilities,” he pointed out. The firm’s main 2.1 billion euro European Loan Strategy has averaged an annual default rate of 1.1 per cent since 2008.

“We do that by being extremely selective… Out of all the deeds we looked at, we refused 70 per cent of them. Then we have a strong monitoring process. Once we invest, we track that investment, we make sure that it goes well. And when we see early signs of distress coming from the borrower, then we take action very quickly.”