Last year's sales data saw M&G lead the way (again) in gross retail terms, the behemoth group's massive fixed interest desk bursting with strategies to tempt investors, whatever their interest in the asset class, but the net sales story is quite different.
While Stuart Rhodes's popular Global Dividend fund has been stealing the thunder off many 'me-too' style UK equity income funds, the £3.62bn Global Basics portfolio saw a lot of money exit following a period of poor performance and an apologetic manager – culminating in Graham French's departure from the group in November and his handover to Randeep Somel.
M&G's Property fund, too, remains a popular choice – alongside Henderson's UK Property Trust.
Will assets always follow managers?
The names appearing in the gross sales versus those in the net may not come as too much of a surprise with a handful of names dominating the headlines last year – Neil Woodford's resignation from Invesco Perpetual probably the biggest story the sector's seen for some time and all his peers in the income space scrambling to pick up his losses. Artemis, Old Mutual Global Investors and BlackRock all hot contenders to do so – very likely a major factor in their successful net sales figures.
While the usual suspects remain at the top of the leaderboards, the big surprise was shown in the huge gap between the top two spots in the net sales rankings.
Standard Life Investments was once again a favoured name. Pridham lauds the group's "star attraction" of its Global Absolute Return Strategy as a popular core holding for many investors having gathered nearly £20bn in retail assets since it was launched in 2008. The group's MyFolio products are also said to be gaining traction in a very competitive managed fund space.
SLI took in £3.47m of net retail assets during 2013, compared with OMGI's £1.82m. The variances below this making up the rest of the top 10 were marginal by comparison as BlackRock, Artemis, BNY Mellon, Cazenove (pre-Schroders acquistion), Henderson, Schroders, Axa IM and Royal London completed the list.
Gross sales saw those already mentioned joined by Fidelity, Jupiter and Threadneedle, the latter noticeably absent from the net winners list, unlike previous years.
So while the money tends to swing in favour of a particular asset class (bonds v equities very much a continuing story), flexibility of strategy is also a necessary requirement in today's 'new normal' environment, demonstrated by the ongoing popularity of strategic bond strategies and the return to favour of absolute return.
Importance of succession planning
As star managers Woodford and Buxton settle into their new homes, the advisory community will vote with their feet one way or the other.
As SLI saw David Millar, Dave Jubb and Richard Batty join Invesco with a Gars-Mach-II type offering, shortly after Aviva swooped on lead manager Euan Munro, most likely hoping he'd create a similar strategy for them, the emphasis on the team approach was paramount for them.
Key man risk is an issue for any business, and marketing is essential as fund groups vie for the attention (and the assets) of IFAs and their client banks. But if the movement of these major players (and the inflows/outflows that appear to be directly related, in spite of denials by the groups themselves over hefty reliance on individuals) are to be taken on the face value, succession planning, alongside marketing, really ought to receive equal weighting. Just in case.
