Despite strong equity markets, European equity funds attracted just €3.5bn during the fifth month of the year, and bearish sentiment resulted in outflows from UK, European and eurozone equities.
Fears over Chinese economic growth made the Morningstar China Equity category the least popular during the month, while Asia ex Japan and BRIC Equity both suffered outflows.
The Templeton Asian Growth Fund, one of the 10 largest funds in Europe, reported outflows of €223bn across the month.
Fixed income continued to attract significant inflows, €20bn, while convertible bonds, which are often viewed as a stepping stone between bonds and equities, gained traction during the month.
The table shows a breakdown of net flows across asset classes over May and year-to-date.
| May 2013(EUR M) | YTD (EUR M) | |
| Allocation | 11,404 | 51,800 |
| Alternative | 2,663 | 14,505 |
| Commodities | -101 | -480 |
| Convertibles | 1,747 | 6,407 |
| Equity | 3,574 | 34,323 |
| Fixed Income | 20,047 | 90,172 |
| Property | 533 | 1,944 |
| Unclassified | 151 | -166 |
| All Long Term | 39,095 | 195,743 |
| Money market | -3,578 | -7,692 |
Those funds with a diverse mandate proved to be the most popular and in terms of sector, Global Bond, Other Bond (which includes fixed term vehicles), USD Flexible Bond and Global Equity were among the top sectors for the month.
The Templeton Global Total Return fund attracted the largest amount of money in May with inflows of €2.5bn. It was followed by the M&G Optimal Income Fund which reported sales of €1.2bn.
Franklin Templeton was the fund house to top the chart in terms of total sales for the month, recording €3.6bn of inflows. It was followed by JP Morgan which reported sales of €3.4bn.
