SRI and green fund sales spike as mainstream sales slump

European retail SRI and green fund sales both bucked a miserable month of outflows from mainstream equity funds in May this year by recording healthy sales receipts, according to the latest available figures compiled for Responsible Investor by Lipper FMI, the investment data group. SRI, or RI Screened funds as they are labelled by Lipper FMI, recorded total inflows and market appreciation of €461.3m for the month. At the same time, sales of green themed and norms-based European RI retail fund sales – labelled ‘RI Extended’ by Lipper FMI – were also positive at €571.2m. That compared with asset depreciation of €13bn across the mainstream European retail fund market.
Nonetheless, both RI Screened and RI Extended fund classes were dominated by sales of money market funds and short-term duration bond funds, underscoring continued market uncertainty amongst fund investors. For the RI Screened class, the biggest seller was Allianz’s Securicash SRI fund, which took in €218.8m in assets.
The second biggest seller was AXA’s Trésor Court Terme money market fund with sales of €208.4m. Third was French fund manager Natixis’ Impact Cash fund with receipts of €166.2m. Allianz’s French domiciled short-term bond fund, Allianz Euro Oblig Court Terme ISR, was the leading non-cash fund with receipts of €51.4m.Only one equities fund made it in to the top ten: Swedish funds group SEB’s Ethical Global Fund made sales of €50.2m for the month. The largest RI Screened fund is French manager Amundi’s Tréso Eonia ISR cash fund with assets of €17.5bn. Second placed is Natixis’ Fonsicav cash fund with assets of €2.9bn. The growth of RI Extended funds over the month by €571.2m was also dominated by money market funds, although a balanced fund topped the sales list. Luxembourg-domiciled Polaris Fund GEO Global Balanced V was the month’s biggest seller with receipts of €209.6m. It is a balanced fund run on one of Italy’s biggest multi-manager platforms that was started in 2004 to run the money of a number of the country’s Catholic churches. The second highest seller was French fund manager Ofivalmo’s OFI Trésor ISR cash fund with sales of €157.1m. Nordic financial services group Nordea’s SVE Instituutio Korko money market fund was third with a monthly collect of €139.7m. The largest RI Extended fund is Nordea’s International Fund – Sekura Fund, a short-term bond fund with assets of €3.3bn. Second is Danske Bank’s short-term bond fund, Danske Invest Dannebrog Mellemlange Obligationer, with assets of €2.4bn.
For top 20 fund sales list see downloadable documents – left hand column