The European mutual funds industry witnessed further consolidation in the third quarter as fund closures outnumbered new launches, data from Lipper shows.
According to the analyst’s Fund Market Insight Report, a total of 404 funds were launched in Europe over the third quarter while 471 were liquidated and 241 mergers took place.
“The results of the third quarter show the industry still consolidating its fund range,” the report said. “The net size of the European fund universe has gone down consistently since Q1 2011.”
The number of fund launches is down from 417 in the second quarter of 2012 and from 623 one year earlier.
Some 121 of the launches were bond funds, 99 were equity products, 87 were mixed asset, five were money market and 92 fell into the ‘other’ category, which includes real estate funds, commodity funds, guaranteed funds, and funds of hedge funds.
Looking at closures, 166 equity funds, 51 bond funds, 60 mixed-asset funds, 178 ‘other’ funds, and 16 money market funds were liquidated during the three-month period.
But despite continued consolidation, Lipper suggested this trend could be starting to ease.
“The 404 new funds for Q3 2012 continued the trend of a decrease in newly launched products in the European market, but the dynamic of the process decelerated. Therefore, we might see the process turn around in the next few quarters,” the report said.
“In Q3 2012 we saw the lowest number of mergers in the last four years, indicating the consolidation process slowed down.”