Article from http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/financial/
UNIT trust inflows reached their second-highest quarterly level in the first quarter, owing to strong investor confidence, the Association for Savings and Investment SA (Asisa) said on Monday.
The collective investment schemes industry attracted R47bn in the first quarter, with the highest amount reported in one quarter being R63bn in the third quarter of last year. The third-highest amount was R41bn in the fourth quarter of last year.
Asisa represents most of South Africa’s asset managers, collective investment scheme management companies, linked investment service providers, multimanagers and life insurers. Among them they hold assets under management of more than R4-trillion.
Asisa senior policy adviser Peter Blohm said the record inflows meant that savers were saving more than ever and receiving a good net real return from their unit trust investments.
Three successive quarters of record-breaking net inflows for unit trusts, and other local collective investment schemes, resulted in the highest net inflows for any rolling 12-month period. Net inflows for the year to March 31 came to R166bn.
Asisa CEO Leon Campher said that at the end of the first quarter, the local collective investment schemes industry managed assets of R1.28-trillion and offered investors 988 funds. Total assets under management at the end of December stood at R1.2-trillion.
Mr Blohm said there had also been a shift from fixed-interest investments into equities, in a search for higher yields.
Mr Campher said assets under management had almost doubled over the past five years. At the end of March 2009 assets under management were R611bn.
Mr Campher said the bulk of the inflows in the 12 months to March 31 came directly from investors (27%) or were channelled via intermediaries (35%). This meant that more than 60% of inflows consisted of retail money.
Linked investment services providers generated 21% of sales, and 17% of sales were received from institutional investors such as pension and provident funds.
Investors favoured funds in the South African multi-asset category in the first quarter, said Mr Campher. At the end of March, this category held 44% of industry assets. In the first quarter of this year local multi-asset funds attracted R26.2bn in net inflows.
South Africa’s multi-asset category is made up of: the income subcategory, low equity, medium equity, high equity, and flexible.
South African multi-asset, low-equity funds proved most popular with investors, attracting R12bn of inflows in the quarter.
The South African interest bearing short-term category was favoured by investors looking for higher yields than those of cash investments in the low interest-rate environment. These funds attracted the second-highest inflows in the quarter of R9bn.
Mr Campher said only 25% of assets were invested in pure equity and real estate funds at the end of last month. "Investors prefer multi-asset funds because they make it possible to achieve diversification across asset classes within one fund," he said.
Edward West, 29 April 2013, 19:57
Article from http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/financial/
