Putnam Investments, the US money manager sold in February to Canadian insurer Power Financial following a year of declining revenues and outflows, suffered further depletions from its retail funds in the first quarter as it haemorrhaged $3.5bn (€2.6bn).

Outflows at Putnam over the first three months of the year were marginally lower than in the same period a year before, when it lost $3.8bn, but still higher than at any of the top 25 groups ranked by assets under management by Financial Research Corporation, a Boston-based mutual funds analyst.