BVI: German fund industry reaches new record high
In Germany, investment funds recorded fresh inflows to the tune of €10.7bn in November, with the lion’s share of €7.8bn having been contributed by open-ended retail funds. Year to date, the total new business of open-ended funds amounted to €138.8bn while closed-ended funds brought in €2.3bn. Institutional investors withdrew €16.9bn net from discretionary mandates.
With inflows amounting to €4.2bn, equity funds top the sales chart within the open-ended retail fund segment. Equity ETFs account for €2.3bn while actively managed funds account for €1.9bn. In November as well, the new business of balanced funds continued to be dominated by products that invest equally in equities and bonds; these funds recorded €1.2bn in inflows and managed assets totalling €125bn. This equates to a 48% share in the balanced fund volume totalling €261bn. By comparison, five years ago, products that invest equally in equities and bonds had a share of 54% in the assets of balanced funds. In contrast, equity-oriented balanced funds grew their share from 21% to 26% as a result of rising markets and inflows during previous years.
Master KVG solutions are gaining ground
Over recent years, institutional investors such as insurance companies and pension funds have increasingly been using Master KVG solutions for their capital investments. In doing so, they combine several Spezialfonds into one single master fund that is made up of several segments. This enables several specialised asset managers to independently manage the assets held in various segments. In particular, investors benefit from uniform reporting and central risk management by one fund company across all funds.
At present, 73% of the open-ended securities Spezialfonds’ assets are segmented. On average, a master fund contains 4.5 segments. Ten years ago, 55 per cent of all assets were segmented, with an average of 4.1 segments per master fund.
