Covid-19 market volatility failed to stem inflows into SA’s collective investment schemes, which enjoyed a record R88bn of net inflows in the second quarter of 2020, according to theBy the end of June 2020 assets under management had recovered to R2.54-trillion from R2.26-trillion at the end of March 2020, Asisa said.
This brought total net inflows for the first half of 2020 to R111bn, and R156bn for the 12 months to end-June 2020. Collective investment schemes, such as unit trusts, allow investors to pool money to be invested in, among other places, equities or bonds. Sunette Mulder, senior policy adviser at Asisa, said the record net quarterly inflows came as a surprise considering the volatile investment environment and the unprecedented worldwide uncertainty created by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The R88bn in net inflows includes reinvested distributions of R20bn, which means R68bn was brand new money that had not been invested in collective investment scheme portfolios before,” she said. Also, the split between institutional and retail investments is about 50-50, which means that about R44bn was invested by individual investors, Mulder said.