The positive first quarter for the country's biggest standalone asset manager by market capitalisation follows a forecast-beating 2014 and comes as investors pile into actively managed funds in the hope of market-beating returns.

A strong market performance helped add 14.4 billion pounds to Schroders' total assets during the quarter, it said in a statement on Thursday. It took in a further 5.1 billion pounds in net new money, beating some analyst forecasts.

Following a strong recent run in the share price, Schroders traded down 1.3 percent at 0900 GMT, lagging a slightly weaker FTSE 100 <.FTSE>.

"The shares have been strong recently, so much of the good information may already be priced in. That said, momentum is certainly with Schroders, and we retain our Buy recommendation," said Jonathan Richards, analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald.

Investors' hunt for returns in a low interest rate world has seen billions of dollars flood into stock markets, pushing many to new highs.

Chief Executive Michael Dobson said equities continued to look attractive despite some concerns that markets were overheating relative to economic growth.

"It's still the preferred place to be, if you can find strong companies yielding 2 percent plus, with the prospect of dividend growth, share buybacks maybe," he said.

"There's a bit of merger activity in the market, there's a lot of liquidity around.

Of the net new money, 2 billion pounds came from large investors and 2.9 billion through its network of intermediaries, the company said.

Asian institutional, Asian intermediary and continental European intermediary drove the quarterly flows, Dobson said, with credit funds, Japanese equities, multi-asset and, to a lesser extent, continental European stocks the main winners.

Combined with a slight 200 million pound pick-up in assets at its wealth management unit, the inflows helped boost total assets to 319.5 billion pounds, up from 300 billion pounds at the end of December.

While net revenue in its asset management unit rose to 348.5 million pounds from 306.2 million in the year-earlier period, performance fees were just 1.7 million pounds compared with 6.3 million pounds in the year-earlier period.

Pretax profit before exceptional items, related to the acquisitions of wealth managers STW and Cazenove several years ago, was 149.6 million pounds, the company said, up 14 percent from the year-earlier period.

(Reporting by Simon Jessop; Editing by Nishant Kumar and Keith Weir)

By Simon Jessop