The total managed funds sector grew by $115 billion in the March quarter of this year with $45.3 billion being added to the retail sector and $69.9 billion added to the wholesale sector in the first three months of this year.
The growth in retail was up 14.4 per cent to a total retail funds under management (FUM) figure of $742.7 billion according to Plan for Life which stated that while strong sharemarket performance contributed to the growth high levels of market volatility has subsequently resulted in much of this outperformance being reversed.
Despite this many of the major funds management groups have reported double digit annual funds under management growth even as gross inflows fell by 20 per cent to $36.4 billion during the March quarter.
For the year ending in March the decline in inflows was only 3.5 per cent with inflows into the main superannuation market declining by 0.4 per cent while the retirement income market inflows increased by 9.4 per cent while the unit trusts and investment funds market had saw a 13.6 per cent drop in inflows.
The wholesale funds market grew by 18.4 per cent over the past year for a total FUM of $837.8 billion with half of this growth coming in the March quarter when the Australian stock market contributed 9.1 per cent growth. However since then much of this growth has been reversed by market volatility.
Until the end of March the main Wholesale Institutional and Wholesale Investment markets experienced growth of 16.6 per cent and 22.4 per cent respectively with the major wholesale managers reporting strong double digit annual growth.
While gross inflows increased by 4.3 per cent to $55 billion during the March quarter overall gross inflows numbers increased by only 3.4 per cent over the whole of the last 12 months.
