Numbers are solid

Despite a last minute double counting glitch, by one of its members, the Association of Collective Investments (ACI) released their quarterly figures about the state of the industry.

Di Turpin of the Association of Collective Investments (ACI) 707 funds and assets of 496bn, with record flows for the quarter of R19bn, with R54bn for the year. The asset base has increased, significantly.

It's a conservative market out there - with 95% of all business went into conservative funds. But why are investors investing conservatively, despite the fact that the average prudential fund did 21% thus far this year.

It appears that investors are getting older - average age 45. This is linked to the ageing intermediary body, who are comfortably selling to people they know - who are also getting older.

Younger investors need to be converted to saving, as they are increasingly comfortable with their debt levels, using their access bonds to bring down their principle debt - their homes.

There is increased interest in retail funds, while equities had a net outflow for the quarter. Money market funds were the big winners this quarter, together with the prudential funds. Property funds were the big losers, fixed interest income funds also suffered.

On the third party funds subject, there were 28 new funds launched this quarter, six new third party fund companies and 4 unit trust management companies.  There is a big jump here, representing 7% of total assets, up from 6% last quarter.

Historically since 1966, there has been a healthy increase in the growth in assets in the collective investments industry, showing a 34% increase in assets per annum, the JSE returned 13.4%, while being invested in the CIS would have returned 30.8% in terms of net wealth.