SRI fund sales mirror market rise: RI/Lipper FMI stats

European SRI funds continued their sales recovery through June this year with €760.7m moving back into the sector, according to the latest available figures compiled for Responsible Investor by Lipper FMI, the investment data group. Cash funds were the top sellers over the month, suggesting continued caution amongst investors on investing in sustainable equity funds despite rising stock markets. The June inflows follow May’s sales recovery when over a billion euros (€1,068.3m) shifted back into the sector. SRI funds or ‘RI Screened’ as they are labelled by Lipper FMI, are those that have undergone an ‘extra financial’ ESG (environment, social and governance) screen in their stock selection process. The largest selling RI Screened fund was Dexia’s Luxembourg-domiciled Money Market Euro Sustainable Fund with inflows of €171.4m. Allianz’s France-domiciled Securicash SRI fund was second, netting €164.2m. The best selling equity fund, KBC’s Dublin-domiciled institutional Alternative Energy fund, was third with sales of €139m. The three largest SRI funds in terms of total assets are all currently cash funds. The biggest is Société Générale’s Invest Monetaire fund with assets of €1.98bn. Second is Allianz’s Securicash fund with €1.94bn. Third is BNP Paribas’ Moné Etheis fund with €1.18bn in assets. The totalsector is worth €42.7bn. Green themed funds (labelled by Lipper FMI as ‘RI Extended’ which includes funds with multiple exclusions, those following a norms-based strategy and themed climate change and microfinance funds) – also maintained positive numbers during with total sector inflows of €290.3m. Two of the biggest sellers were exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The June figures followed healthy inflows the month previously during May when total sales were €396.1m.
The biggest seller during June was Deutsche/DWS’ DB X-Trackers DB CommBooster S&P GSCI Light Energy EUR ETF1C fund, which netted €90.3m. In second place was Blackrock’s New Energy Fund with €37.7m.
In third place was Barclays’ Dublin-based iShares S&P Global Clean Energy fund with €16.2m
The iShares business was sold along with its parent company Barclays Global Investors during June to Blackrock, the US fund manager. Blackrock’s New Energy Fund remains the market leader in size terms with assets of €2.4bn, followed by Pictet’s Water fund with 2.2bn. In third place is Pioneer’s Global Ecology fund with €786m. The total sector is worth €14.5bn. Total mainstream equity sales for the month of June reached just over €7bn.

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