European SRI fund sales jump €1.3bn in a month – green fund sales drop

Sales of European SRI retail funds jumped by a healthy €1.3bn during November, 2010, significantly boosted by inflows into a trio of SRI-labelled, French-domiciled cash funds, 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 biggest seller for the month was French fund manager Amundi’s Tréso ISR fund with estimated net sales of €1.2bn. In second place was French manager Natixis’ Fonsicav with new assets of €335.3m. Third was Aviva’s French-domiciled ISR Court Terme (SRI short-term) fund with receipts of €322.2m. Cash and bond funds dominated the top ten fund sellers with just one equity fund making the cut: AXA’s World Funds – Framlington Eurozone RI fund, which was fourth highest seller with inflows of €137.9m. The largest ‘RI Screened’ fund is French fund manager Amundi’s Tréso ISR fund with €7.6bn in assets. Second is France’s Natixis’ Fonsicav with €5.9bn. Third is Allianz’s Securicash fund with €1.3bn.Sales of green themed and norms-based European RI retail funds, however, reversed their gains of October (€77.1m) with a significant drop in November of €382m in assets across the sector. 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 best seller was an exchange traded fund (ETF), Blackrock’s ishares S&P Global Water with receipts of €72.9m. Second was Germany’s Universal Invest, Earth Energy Fund UI with €55.2m. Third was Luxembourg-domiciled Nevastar Finance’s, Neva Fund Climate Change+ with €36.1m. Another ETF, Lyxor’s ETF World Water fund also made the top four, underlining the rise of ETFs in the sector.
The biggest RI extended fund is Pictet’s Water fund with assets of €2.4bn. Second is Blackrock’s New Energy Fund with assets of €2bn.
 Total mainstream equity fund sales for the month of October came to €11.4bn.
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