The retail funds management industry has suffered its second consecutive quarter of decline dropping three per cent from $236 billion to $229 billion over the September quarter according to research houseAssirt.
The figures have been released as part of the research house’s quarterly market share report which attributes the ongoing decrease to poor markets in which retail Australian and international share funds fell by 7.8 per cent and 14 per cent respectively, impacting fund inflows.
Despite this, the Top 10 managers in terms of retail assets under management remain unchanged with the combinedCommonwealth/Colonial First Stategroup at number one with $46.1 billion or 20.14 per cent of the market.
TheNational/MLCgroup maintained its second place with $32.4 billion or 14.15 per cent of the market. The rest of the field was filled out byAMP,ING,Westpac(Sagitta included),AXA,Macquarie,BT,PerpetualandTower Holdings.
AXA was the only funds management group in the Top 10 to move upwards, swapping eighth position for sixth with BT. The move came mostly on the back of the inclusion of funds held with the Ipac advisory group, which was bought out by AXA earlier this year.
Assirt says it has not included BT funds with the Westpac group even though Sagitta had been included, stating the BT/Westpac deal was not concluded till last week. As a result of this the three groups will be reported under Westpac in the December quarter given the group a combined total number of assets of $26.5 billion.
In terms of inflows, National/MLC were in the top position attracting $538 million, while Platinum Asset Management who were number one in inflows in the June quarter took out third spot with $467.1 million, just behind UBS Global Asset Management on $468.17.
Overall net inflows were also down by 57 per cent over the same period last year ($4.6 billion) and 23 per cent lower than last quarter ($2.6 billion) with yearly net inflows at $13.2 billion, 28 per cent lower than the yearly flow to September 2001 of $18.4 billion.
