Europe’s green funds haemorrhage a billion dollars in a month

SRI funds also suffer heavy redemptions during apex of the credit crisis.

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Green funds in Europe recorded a massive €834.7m ($1.1bn) withdrawal in October during the height of the credit crisis, according to the latest available figures compiled for Responsible Investor by Lipper Feri, the investment data group.
Including asset depreciation as a result of the market downturn, the withdrawals took the total size of Europe’s green fund market down to €13.6bn by the end of October from €17.9bn at the end of September. The outflows follow September’s green sector client redemptions of €616m ($748m) after a slight rally in August when they took in €64m in new money. Only four green funds made it into double figures for fund sales in October. BNP Paribas’ Easy ETF Global Waste fund was the biggest seller with estimated in-flows of €13.6m. It was followed by Delta Lloyd’s Luxembourg-domiciled Water & Climate fund with sales of €13.5m and in third place DWS’s Luxembourg-based Invest Climate Change fund with sales of €11.5m. The biggest green fund is Pictet’s Water fund with €2.4bn followed by Blackrock’s New Energy Fund with just over €2bn. The drop in green fund assets mirrored that of thebroader equity fund market where sales in Europe were down by €21.6bn during October to reach €1.2 trillion.
Sales of SRI funds, which differ from their green peers by undergoing socially responsible screens, were also down in October losing €496.3m to reach a total of €35.6bn. It followed outflows of €1.1bn in assets in September when the SRI fund total universe was at over €40bn. French-based SRI funds were among the best sellers in October. Alianz Global Investors France had the top grossing fund, the Allianz Securicash SRI fund, which was the only fund to make it out of double figure sales with net inflows of €215.9m as investors sought a cash haven. Allianz’s AGF Valeurs Durables fund was second in the sales ranking and one of few SRI equity funds to take in money over the month with net sales of €54.8m. Another cash fund, French fund manager Macif Gestion’s Courte Terme ISR (Short-term SRI) fund was third with sales of €52.5m.
Europe’s largest SRI fund is Société Générale’s SGAM Invest Monetaire ISR fund with just under €1.5bn in assets.
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