While gross retail fund sales may have hit new heights last year, the flipside was redemptions with net figures down 19% on 2014, according to the latest Pridham Report.
BlackRock topped the rankings in terms of gross sales at £10.7bn, benefiting especially from its passive and multi-asset vehicles.
This was followed by Standard Life at £8.6bn, which profits from the ongoing popularity of Global Absolute Return Strategies (GARS) – accounting for around a third of its inflows.
Neil Woodford’s eponymous firm may have topped the tree in terms of net retail sales at £3.3bn last year, though investors will no doubt take note of the manager’s own assessment on markets’ “black” frame of mind with the economy to take a turn for the worse in 2016.
“There is a realisation that the weak economic backdrop is going to have an impact on earnings. And, by implication the valuations that we have talked about as being quite high, were going to come under pressure,” he said last week.
While investors’ insatiable need for income cannot be underestimated – a big factor in Woodford Equity Income’s popularity – there has also been noted shift back into targeted absolute return and property funds.
The report suggests the likes of Kames Capital, Henderson and Legal & General Investment Management have been beneficiaries of a move into bricks and mortar property, while the Investment Association’s latest statistics (for November) registered both Targeted Absolute Return and Property in the top-four best-selling sectors.
