The drive by Schroders into higher-margin institutional products helped push pre-tax profits of its asset management business up 80% to £99.8m (€146.5m) in the six months to the end of June. Profits from its private equity operations rose by almost 30%.

UK money manager suffered £2bn in institutional net outflows in the first half but this was less than half the £4.5bn suffered in the same period last year.