At the end of Q3 35017 funds were registered for sale in Europe, with Luxembourg continuing to dominate the market hosting 9183 funds and France next in line with 5245 funds domiciled there.
Lipper said since the beginning of the year 2383 funds had been created for sale in Europe, but during the same period 1513 were closed and 1260 merged.
In the third quarter there was a net decrease of 121 funds, which Dunny P Moonesawmy, head of Western Europe and Middle-East Research said was "mainly due to continued rationalisation of fund families resulting from the Ucits IV directive rather than weaknesses in the new funds dynamic".
What’s more the third quarter, which was an incredibly volatile one, actually saw an increase of over 10% in the number of new funds launched compared to the first quarter.
At the end of Q3 37% of funds registered for sale in Europe were equity funds, 23% were mixed-asset funds and 18% bond funds. The remainder was made up of money market funds, real estate funds, commodity funds and fund of hedge funds.
Equity funds also represented the largest group of new funds launched with 791 since the start of the year, compared to 481 bond funds and 524 mixed-asset funds.
Lipper expects the process of rationalising and merging fund ranges to continue over the coming months as revenue for the industry is hurt by the continued eurozone crisis.
