Statistics produced by the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) indicate that from October to November last year, sales of UCITS slid from €44bn to €27bn.
However, long term fund sales of UCITS increased by a third, from €23bn in October to €31bn.
This follows a trend from earlier in the year when it was announced there was a steep fall in sales in September, and only a 0.8% growth in assets. This is compared to a 1.5% rise in assets throughout November.
Equity fund net sales returned to positive territory, after seeing inflows of €2bn against outflows of €5bn in October, which the director of economics and research at EFAMA, Bernard Delbecque, said is down to a decline in stock market uncertainty.
Meanwhile, bond fund net sales reduced from €16bn to €11bn, and within the same period, balanced funds were bolstered from €9bn to €13bn.
“Risk-off mode”
Thomson Reuters firm, Lipper, also released information on the European funds industry, reporting net inflows of €21.6bn in November, with mixed-asset products topping the list for best-selling asset class at €10.3bn.
France had the highest inflows at €8.2bn, followed by Germany at €3.3bn.
The head of EMEA research at Lipper, Detlef Glow, has predicted that Luxembourg-domiciled and Ireland-domiciled funds will be the best-selling products when results are released for last December.
Glow has also estimated that the next bout of statistics will reveal net outflows in both bond funds and equity products at the end of last year.
He said: “It seems European investors are back in a risk-off mode and are selling equity funds, while bond funds – despite potential outflows for December – continue to be the best selling asset type in Europe.”
EFAMA published its findings today after collating data from 27 associations, which collectively represent 99.6% of both UCITS and non-UCITS assets.
