In a bumper year for the industry retail investors ploughed a net £20.8bn into the market in 2014, £8.6bn of which was accounted for by equity fund sales.
Total FUM rose from £771bn to £834bn, an 8.2% year-on-year increase.
The best-selling IA sector was UK equity income with net retail sales of £6.3bn, leading the market for eight out of 12 months last year.
The UK also topped the regional equity table, gathering net retail sales of £5.1bn – up from £2.9bn – in 2013. At the other end of the spectrum, the US saw net retail outflows of £443m, a 136.9% drop on the £1.2bn net inflows recorded last year.
More than half of industry gross retail sales were represented by UK fund platforms, amounting to £85bn – 55% in all.
Property also exhibited a strong performance, with unprecedented net retail sales of £3.8bn.
Net institutional sales also came through in good health to hit £11.4bn, which the IA said around half of was contributed by insurance assets being transferred into open-ended investment companies.
Tracker fund FUM underwent a year-on-year rise of 25.3%, topping out at a record £93bn by the end of 2014, the asset class extending its market share from 9.8% to 11.2% in the process.
Ethical funds also performed well, recording net retail sales of £460m – its best since 2007 – to hit £10bn in FUM.
Conversely, the funds of funds universe saw its lowest net retail sales figures since 2008 at £3.3bn, down from £3.9bn in 2013.
