Aviva Investors CEO says outflows 'substantially reduced'

LONDON (Reuters) - The chief executive of Aviva Investors, Euan Munro, said outflows at the fund management arm of insurer Aviva have "substantially reduced" and the unit was "healing very rapidly".

Munro said he was seeing lots of interest from investment consultants and prospective clients and was therefore optimistic on growth over the next 18 months. The unit currently manages around 240 billion pounds ($408.39 billion) in assets.

At an event to mark the launch of the first in a new range of so-called 'outcome-oriented', multi-asset funds, which will seek to grow capital, generate income or beat inflation, as opposed to just beating peers of an index benchmark, Munro said the funds would be "among the biggest things we do".

The first fund to launch targets a return of the Bank of England base rate plus 5 percent and starts with 100 million pounds in assets, but was designed to be able to grow substantially, Munro said.

Should the new range of funds eventually reach between 10 billion and 15 billion pounds, they would double the profitability of Aviva Investors, which currently relies heavily on low-margin investment flow from the parent insurer.

(Reporting by Simon Jessop)