A record R15-billion from institutional and retail investors was channelled into unit trusts in the September quarter, South Africa’s Association of Collective Investments (ACI) said on Thursday.
In several cases, industry fund averages were ahead of stock-market indices with funds showing returns of more than 40% in many sectors.
ACI chairperson John Kinsley said the domestic general equity funds, which house the bulk of unit-trust investments, achieved an industry average of 37,6% compared with the FTSE/JSE Securities Exchange all-share’s 35,9%.
Both value (44,6%) and growth (41,9%) sectors produced average performances of well more than 40%, while
financials-sector funds led the performances with 48,2%, followed by smaller companies (46,6%) and industrials (44,5%).
The net inflow was an all-time high — up 63% on the previous three months.
“The excellent performances are likely to lead investors to re-examine equity funds as well as underpin the strong inflows into the fixed-interest sectors,” the ACI said.
Kinsley added that the industry is on track for a record year. Thus far, unit trusts have had net inflows of R35,8-million — not far off the record total in 2003 of R38,9-million.
Industry assets rose to R282,7-billion in the September quarter, from R249,6-billion in the June quarter, reflecting the firmer stock market and strong inflows.
Retail funds saw net flows of R10,8-billion, while institutional investment was R4,3-billion. Interest in worldwide, foreign and regional funds remained subdued due to the outperformance of the local stock market and most sectors had small outflows.
Investors increased their stake in domestic equity funds, but fixed-interest investment, mainly money-market funds, rocketed from R5,6-billion to R11,1-billion.
About R1,8-billion was invested in general equity domestic funds after R517-million in the previous quarter. There were minor outflows from resources, industrial, financial industrial and financial funds. Value funds had an outflow of just less than R500-million.
The number of funds rose to 517 from 497 in the previous quarter, ACI said. — I-Net Bridge