SRI funds maintain positive sales flows, green funds recover

Sales of European SRI retail funds stayed positive through to the end of 2010 recording inflows of €623.8m in December last year – although they continued to be dominated by risk-averse cash fund sales – according to the latest available figures compiled for Responsible Investor by Lipper FMI, the investment data group. ‘RI screened’ funds, as they are labelled by Lipper FMI, have undergone an ‘extra-financial’ ESG (environment, social and governance) screen in their stock selection process. The RI screened fund sales list was once again dominated by money market funds. French asset manager Natixis’ Fonsicav cash fund took in net estimated sales of €755.8m for the month. Similarly, insurance and funds group, Aviva’s French-domiciled cash fund, Aviva ISR Court Terme fund, took in €684.3m. Cash fund sales had also dominated the sales table in November 2010. The third biggest seller in December was, however, an equity fund managed by Norway’s Storebrand. Its Norge Institusjon fund, which invests in Norwegian equities, took in €201.7m during the month. The largest ‘RI Screened’ fund is French fund manager Amundi’s Tréso ISR fund with €7.1bn in assets.Second is Natixis’ Fonsicav with €6.6bn. Third is Aviva’s ISR Court Terme fund with €1.6bn in assets. Sales of green themed and norms-based European RI retail funds, recovered in December also, reversing drops in November of €382m across the sector by taking in €841.3m in the last month. The fund class, labelled by Lipper FMI as ‘RI Extended’, includes those with multiple ethical exclusions, those following a norms-based strategy and themed climate change and microfinance funds. However, most of the rise was due to the sales of one bond fund, the Storebrand Global Stat fund, run by Storebrand, the Norwegian manager, which took in assets of €804.1m during the month. The second biggest selling fund of the month was another bond fund, the ESPA Bond Euro-Mundelrent, run by Austria’s Sparkassen, which netted €53.3m. Third was BNP Paribas’ Luxembourg-domiciled Parvest fund with sales of €42.5m. The biggest RI extended fund is Pictet’s Water fund with assets of €2.6bn. Second is Blackrock’s New Energy Fund with assets of €2bn.
 Total mainstream equity fund sales for the month of October came to €20.3bn.
See downloads – left hand column – for full RI Lipper table of fund sales or click to download here