All major institutions have reported falls in funds under management (FUM) over the past 12 months, with the sector experiencing its worst performance in three years.
According to figures released by Plan for Life, total FUM stood at $483.2 billion at the end of September – down 4.1 per cent from where they were a year ago.
FUM also fell by 5.5 per cent during the September quarter, making it the worst performance for retail managed funds in three years.
The research house said volatile, and more often that not negative investment markets clouded this result, haunted by the prospect that there could be a second global financial crisis – worse than the first one.
"[This] was brought on by the seeming inability to properly address and resolve in particular the ongoing European sovereign debt crises, the trillions of dollars of US government debt and growing East/West trade imbalances," Plan for Life stated.
Companies such as BT Financial Group, MLC, AMP, Colonial First State, OnePath and IOOF have all reported negative growth in FUM, with Perpetual copping the worst result – down 13 per cent in the past year.
In terms of fund inflows, however, Macquarie seems to have suffered the most, plunging by 84.5 per cent over the year to September 2011.
Macquarie believes the decline could be attributed to the one-off conversion of investments in the Macquarie Cash Management Trust into the Macquarie Cash Management Account that took place in 2010, which has distorted the year-on-year comparison of inflow numbers.
"This is evidenced by figures provided in the table displaying retail managed funds excluding cash trusts. We are currently working with Plan for Life to review these figures," the company stated.
BT Financial Group and Bendigo Bank remain the only institutions with positive annual growth in inflows.
