In contrast, France saw inflows of €19.4bn, Ireland of €17bn and Luxembourg of €7.8bn. Germany and Belgium also saw small positive inflows. The Netherlands and Spain were the two markets alongside the UK to see net outflows.
The European fund industry as a whole saw net inflows of €20.6bn, with equity by far the best-selling asset class. Equity funds attracted €15.7bn in inflows, while bond funds managed just €0.7bn. Alternative UCITS proved popular, gathering €4.1bn over the month.
Even commodities funds saw a small net inflow for the month, of €0.02bn. Surprisingly, in a month characterised by ‘risk on’ sentiment, money market products also saw significant inflows of €25.1bn.
Equity Europe (+€3.2 bn) was the best selling sector, followed by Equity Global (+€2.4 bn), Equity Emerging Markets (+€2.4 bn), and Bond Global High Yield (+€1.6 bn). Among alternatives, Alternative Equity Market-Neutral (+€1.5 bn) was the top-seller.
The weakest areas were Local Currency Emerging Market Bonds, which saw net outflows of €1.4 bn. The Unclassified, Mixed-Asset GBP Conservative, Bond EUR Short Term and Bond USD High Yield sectors were also weak.
BlackRock was the best selling fund group for October overall, ahead of Aviva and Amundi. The best-selling fund was the iShares Core EURO STOXX 50 UCITS ETF, which drew €0.5bn over the month. The group’s Emerging Marke Local Government Bond UCITS ETF and Euro High Yield Corporate bond UCITS ETF also fared well.
