The Survey on Italian Funds and SICAVs by the Mediobanca Research Office, now in its twenty-second edition, considers 923 Italian-law funds owned by the most important operators in terms of assets under management (23 for open-ended funds), as well as 1499 funds incorporated and liquidated up to throughout 2012. The industry representation rate in terms of assets is 95% in the open-end fund sector and over 97% in the other categories – except closed-end and real estate. Compared to the previous edition, 87 more funds were reported, taking into account 85 merged and 21 liquidated funds, as well as 14 funds for which the report was not made available. These are the summary results of the survey
. Redemptions always prevail: Italian funds continue to suffer redemptions whose volume exceeds new subscriptions. In 2012 it was about 9 billion euro; overall, assets at the end of 2012 marked the second lowest amount in the last 15 years. The downsizing of the industry (now fourteenth in the international context for overtaking Sweden) translates into an incidence of managed assets on the GDP equal to 8% against 42% in 1999; Italy appears to be in strong contrast with Europe where the incidence rose from 48% to 69% in the same period.
. Positive operating result: in 2012 the funds closed their accounts with a profit of 13,5 billion euro (on assets to manage which at the beginning of the year amounted to 192 billion). The average net return on equity can be estimated at 6,2%, particularly due to the recovery of equity funds (11,1%), balanced funds (8%) and bond funds (7,4%), as well as pension funds , both negotiated (8,2%) and open (9,1%).
. Management mode: management costs rose to 1,3% of assets with a peak of 2,8% in the equity sector, an all-time high (three and a half times compared to US funds). Also there rotation of the portfolio (7 and a half months) was confirmed as high, especially if compared with the average of American funds (which exceeds two years).
. Long-term evaluation: returns in a long-term perspective are still unsatisfactory; those who had invested in all Italian funds in the last 29 years would have suffered, compared to an annual investment in 12-month BOTs, a loss of more than one times the initial capital (increased in the period by only 3,7 times against 4,8 of bots). Based on rate risk free, the result of open funds highlights a destruction of value equal to approximately 81 billion euros in the last fifteen years.
. in 2013: according to the official statistics available, in the first three months of 2013 there was a prevalence of subscriptions over redemptions for 1,8 billion euro in funds governed by Italian law. The funds round trip (promoted abroad by Italian managers) recorded a volume of net subscriptions of 4,9 billion. There performance for the period can be estimated at around 1,6%.
Attachments: Report_Funds_2013-Presentation.doc
