Chinese firms big winners of ‘long-term’ fund assets
Chinese fund houses represented eight of the 10 biggest net gatherers of Asia mutual fund assets last year, excluding money-market funds and funds of funds, according to Cerulli Associates. As a result, three appear in the research firm’s latest ranking of the top 10 houses by what it calls "long-term" mutual fund AUM (see figure 1).
This shift has come at the expense of global players, with BlackRock and JP Morgan Asset Management dropping out of the top 10 by AUM, with two Chinese firms – E Fund and ICBC Credit Suisse – joining China Asset Management in the ranking (see figure 2).
Indeed, five of the 10 managers to see the biggest net outflows last year were global firms, namely Fidelity, JP Morgan AM, BlackRock, BNP Paribas Investment Partners and Vanguard (see figure 4).
Japanese firms remained the biggest players in the list by AUM, with Nomura jumping from fourth to first this year.
Boston-based Cerulli calculates long-term mutual fund AUM by stripping out money-market funds and funds of funds.
|
Figure 1: Fund managers by long-term Asia mutual fund assets, December 2015 |
||
|
Rank |
Asset manager |
AUM ($ bn) |
|
1 |
Nomura |
44.7 |
|
2 |
Daiwa Securities |
44.0 |
|
3 |
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial |
40.1 |
|
4 |
E Fund Management |
37.1 |
|
5 |
Vanguard |
34.5 |
|
6 |
Fidelity |
31.6 |
|
7 |
Schroders |
31.2 |
|
8 |
ICBC Credit Suisse Asset Management |
30.0 |
|
9 |
China Asset Management |
25.8 |
|
10 |
Nikko Asset Management |
25.8 |
|
Source: Cerulli Associates [Note: data excludes money market funds and funds-of-funds.] |
||
|
Figure 2: Fund managers by long-term Asia mutual fund assets, December 2014 |
||
|
Rank |
Manager |
AUM ($ bn) |
|
1 |
Daiwa Securities |
43.4 |
|
2 |
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial |
34.6 |
|
3 |
Vanguard |
33.5 |
|
4 |
Nomura |
32.8 |
|
5 |
Fidelity |
30.8 |
|
6 |
Schroders |
30.2 |
|
7 |
JP Morgan Asset Management |
25.3 |
|
8 |
BlackRock |
23.1 |
|
9 |
Nikko Asset Management |
19.4 |
|
10 |
China Asset Management |
18.8 |
|
Source: Cerulli Associates [Note: data excludes money market funds and funds-of-funds.] |
||
The Chinese firms in the top 10 at end-2015 – E Fund, ICBC Credit Suisse and China AMC – had been 21st, 16th and 10th, respectively, at end-2014.
The growth of mainland managers (see figure 3) has resulted in China becoming the largest long-term mutual fund market in the region, with $579 billion as of end-December 2015, surpassing Australia ($513 billion) and Japan ($502 billion). Only a month earlier, China had lagged both other markets, with $465 billion in assets.
It was largely new product offerings that drove net inflows for Chinese fund houses, said Chua Shu Mei, Singapore-based associate director at Cerulli. Executives from E Fund and China AMC had told AsianInvestor that the key driver of their growth last year was successful new product launches, such as balanced funds and bond funds.
“2015 was a pretty unique year,” said Chua, especially in respect of developments in China. “Some investors might have gotten jittery and withdrew from global investments when markets turned,” she added.
Overall, the top 10 fund houses managed a total of $344.7 billion assets in Asia at end-2015, representing 15% of the regional fund industry’s $2.3 trillion in long-term mutual fund AUM.
Cerulli's findings echo those from AsianInvestor’s AI100 list of the 100 biggest managers by Asia-Pacific-sourced assets, released last month. Both sets of research reflect the growing importance of Asia-based firms in their home region as global players have seen their assets shrink.
|
Figure 3: Managers of Asia long-term mutual funds by biggest inflows, December 2015 YTD |
|||
|
Rank |
Manager |
Net new flows ($ bn) |
|
|
1 |
E Fund Management |
17.0 |
|
|
2 |
Fullgoal Fund Management |
13.5 |
|
|
3 |
ICBC Credit Suisse Asset Management |
11.7 |
|
|
4 |
Penghua Fund Management |
9.3 |
|
|
5 |
Nomura |
7.7 |
|
|
6 |
China Southern Fund Management |
6.7 |
|
|
7 |
China Merchants Fund Management |
6.5 |
|
|
8 |
Bank of China Investment Management |
5.6 |
|
|
9 |
HDFC Fund Management |
4.7 |
|
|
10 |
Zhong Ou Fund Management |
4.5 |
|
|
Source: Cerulli Associates (data excludes money market funds and funds-of-funds) |
|||
|
Figure 4: Managers of Asia long-term mutual funds by biggest outflows, Dec 2015 YTD |
||||||||||
|
Rank |
Manager |
Net new flows ($ bn) |
||||||||
|
1 |
Fidelity |
-2.6 |
||||||||
|
2 |
Bosera Asset Management |
-2.6) |
||||||||
|
3 |
Everbright Pramerica Fund Management |
-2.0 |
||||||||
|
4 |
JP Morgan Asset Management |
-1.8 |
||||||||
|
5 |
Lion Fund Management |
-1.8 |
||||||||
|
6 |
Daiwa Securities |
-1.7 |
||||||||
|
7 |
BlackRock |
-1.7 |
||||||||
|
8 |
BNP Paribas Investment Partners |
-1.7 |
||||||||
|
9 |
Dacheng Fund Management |
-1.5 |
||||||||
|
10 |
Vanguard |
-1.4 |
||||||||
|
||||||||||