The firm, which can trace its history back 200 years, is the latest asset manager to get a boost after converting its overseas earnings back into pounds, given a weakening in the currency after Britain voted to leave the European Union.

Currency gains of 10.1 billion pounds underpinned market-related gains of 25.9 billion pounds to drive total assets to 375 billion pounds at the end of September, up from 343.8 billion pounds at the start of July.

Net inflows across Schroders' funds and wealth management products added 2 billion pounds in the quarter, split evenly between retail investors and larger institutional clients, while its recent acquisition of U.S. asset-backed securities manager Brookfield added a further 3.3 billion pounds.

Chief Executive Peter Harrison said the firm had seen inflows to its emerging market debt, other bond and multi-asset funds during the period, and small outflows from its equity funds.

"Against a tricky background, we regard this as a pretty good set of results," he told Reuters. "It's been a choppy quarter, so to have delivered positive flows in both institutional and intermediary [retail] ... is a good result."

Looking ahead, Harrison said markets were likely to remain volatile into year end - particularly given next week's U.S. election - which was making it tough to pick out market trends.

Analysts from JPMorgan, Exane and KBW all said the growth in assets had beaten consensus, and by 0828 GMT, shares in the company were trading up 1.4 percent at 2,823 pence a share.

"We believe the robustness of flows and performance reflects Schroders' diversity and it remains the only traditional asset manager in our coverage universe with an overweight rating," analysts at JPMorgan Cazenove said in a note to clients.

(Reporting by Simon Jessop, editing by Sinead Cruise; Editing by Susan Fenton)

By Simon Jessop