At the end of March, there had been only 506 new fund launches, a fall of 50% from a peak in Q1 2008, said Lipper, which added that this was also a 36% fall from the number of fund launches in Q1 2011.
Meanwhile, the quarter also saw continued fund consolidation, with a total of 698 funds withdrawn from the market – 493 of which were liquidations, while were 205 were fund mergers.
Commenting on these findings, Lipper said the low number of fund launches continued a trend seen last year in the European market and said the “slight increase of liquidations, as well as the increase of fund mergers, might have been driven by the industry’s still focusing on consolidation of fund ranges to reduce ongoing costs”.
Of the funds launched, 143 were bond funds, 138 were equity funds, 118 were mixed-asset funds, 88 were classed as “other” and 19 were money market funds.
Of those liquidated 154 were equity funds, 57 were bond funds, 86 were mixed-asset funds, 167 were “other” funds, and 29 were money market funds.
Luxembourg continued to dominate in terms of fund domicile, with 8,439 funds registered there, nearly twice the number of its closest rival France, which had 4,743 funds registered at the end of the first quarter.
