Asset AllocationAugust 22, 2014

Multi-Asset Shines in Bumper Year for Fund Flows

<p>A pre-crisis level wave of assets hit fund managers in the first half of the year.<span style="line-height: 0;"> </span></p>

Reported by Featured Author

Multi-asset funds had record flows in the first half of 2014 and took the second largest chunk of new investor capital in Europe, data has shown.

Some €62.5 billion was committed to mixed asset funds in the first six months of the year, according to Thomson Reuters, which was €2 billion more than flowed into pure equity.

“European fund flows year to date have been remarkable,”— Thomson Reuters Bond funds took almost as much as these two figures combined, with €114 billion committed to fixed-income strategies, marking a bumper year for fund sales.

“European fund flows year to date have been remarkable,” Thomson Reuters said in its mid-year review. “Total European net sales of €252 billion into mutual funds are up 34% from the entire sales figure for 2013 (€188 billion) and currently represent the highest sales figure since 2006 (€372 billion).”

Spanish investors gave the most to multi-assets funds, with €6.2 billion in net sales, followed by German investors, who committed €6 billion to the strategy. UK investors put €5 billion to work in this sector in the first half of the year.

Allianz Global Investors’ Income and Growth fund collected the most assets in the sector, with €3.4 billion in net sales, followed by Morgan Stanley’s Diversified Alpha Plus strategy.

Multi-asset investments made up 10% of total fund capital at the end of June, while equity funds remained on top with 35% of assets and bond funds had 26%.

Commodities had dismal sales with just €53.2 million committed to the asset class. However, this was better than the outflows of €7 billion last year.

BlackRock received the largest net inflows in the first half of the year (€19.2 billion), followed by UBS (€11 billion), and Den Norske (€9.3 billion). Of the top 10 funds sold in Europe this year, seven of them were run by BlackRock’s iShares.

The top five fund managers in the sales ranking took 23% of all inflows in the first half of the year.