Green and ethical themed funds recover after poor year of inflows

Green themed and norms-based European RI retail funds reversed a largely disappointing year so far for asset inflows with sales of €212.9m during August, according to the latest available figures compiled for Responsible Investor by Lipper FMI, the investment data group. 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. The RI Extended asset sector had mostly recorded outflows for previous months this year. The best seller during August was that of French fund manager, Ofivalmo, whose cash fund, OFI Trésor ISR, pulled in €174.4m. Second biggest grosser was Swedish fund manager Carnegie’s Luxembourg-domiciled, Carnegie Fund – Worldwide Ethical, with €123.7m. Third was Austria’s Sparkassen Eurobond fund, Espa Bond Euro-Mundelrent, which increased assets by €10.6m. The largest fund in the RI Extended sector is Pictet’s Water fund with assets of €2.3bn.
Second is Blackrock’s New Energy Fund with €2.18m.Third is Ofivalmo’s, OFI Trésor ISR, with €1.4bn. Total assets in the sector at the end of August reached just over €22bn. Sales of ‘RI screened’ funds as they are labelled by Lipper FMI, which have undergone an ‘extra-financial’ ESG (environment, social and governance) screen in their stock selection process, were down, however, by €192.3m during the month. Those that were in the black were mostly cash and bond funds, suggesting a continued risk-averseness amongst retail investors. The best seller was Allianz’s Securicash fund, which took in €143.2m. Second was Dexia’s Money Market Euro Sustainable fund with €44.4m. Third was Natixis’ Impact Aggregate Euro fund with receipts of €40.6m.
The largest RI Screened fund is Natixis’ Fonsicav cash fund, which switched to SRI criteria earlier this year, and runs €6.56bn in assets. Second is Amundi’s LCL Monétaire Large fund with €2.15bn. Third is Allianz’s Securicash SRI fund with €1.5bn.
Total assets in the ‘RI Screened’ sector are €64.1bn.