The surge in the Swiss franc earlier this year has hit the AuM of the Zurich-listed investment house.

Zurich-listed GAM Holdings said January’s shock rise in the Swiss franc against the euro and some other currencies has wiped around SFr4.1 billion ($4.27 billion) from the value of assets under management at the end of March. The end-March AuM figure stood at SFr73.7 billion at 31 March, down from SFr76.1 billion at the end of last year.

Most of the firm’s assets under management are counted in foreign currencies, which meant the surge in the Swiss franc, once the Swiss National Bank had removed its cap against the euro of 1.2, had a significant impact.

Overall, the translation of these assets into GAM's Swiss franc reporting currency reduced them by SFr4.1 billion. The biggest impact came from the movement in the euro/Swiss franc exchange rate, which declined by 13 per cent since 31 December 2014, affecting around a third of assets in investment management.

“This [negative currency effect]  was partially offset by the positive impact of market performance in the first quarter and net new money inflows, which were achieved across many asset classes,” GAM said in a statement.

The firm said that particularly strong contributors were the Julius Baer-branded Japanese directional and European long-short equity strategies. Strongly performing specialist fixed income products such as the GAM-branded cat bond and credit opportunities strategy, focused on investment grade credit, and the Julius Baer-branded total return strategy continued to see resilient client demand, it said.

GAM said the absolute return/unconstrained bond strategy saw ongoing outflows from financial intermediaries, largely offset by significant mandate wins from institutional clients around the globe.

The firm’s Chinese equity strategy recorded net outflows, following recent soft performance. Over the past month, however, the strategy's performance as well as investor sentiment for the asset class have markedly improved, it said.

Private Labelling - the area providing outsourcing solutions to third parties and contributing around 7 per cent of GAM's revenues - ended the quarter with assets under management of SFr49.6 billion. Assets increased by SFr2.5 billion from 31 December 2014, reflecting positive market performance and net new money inflows. The negative impact from foreign exchange was SFr1.5 billion - smaller than in investment management, as the majority of Private Labelling assets are denominated in Swiss francs.

Net inflows were recorded in Swiss-domiciled funds, while offshore funds experienced net redemptions, and flows into the Luxembourg business were flat.