Each sub-category of funds in Germany recorded their highest levels since 2005: with retail funds AUM up from €789bn to €883bn, while AUM in Spezialfonds – for institutional investors – grew from €1.2trn to €1.4trn.
Assets held outside of investment funds had also risen, from €363bn to €378bn.
Boasting an all-time high for net new inflows, the president of the German Investment Funds Association BVI, Holger Naumann, described the period as “extraordinarily good”.
Net new business into retail funds and Spezialfonds was €193bn – a record high, while balanced funds also posted record inflows of €38.6bn.
“These records impressively demonstrate the importance of asset management companies as by far the largest managers of capital for retirement planning and wealth creation in Germany.”
A good solution
Naumann said: “In an environment of low interest rates and short-term market fluctuations, fund products offer a good solution to invest in a risk-controlled manner in higher yielding assets such as equities and real estate.”
Following four years of record outflows, equity funds picked up €21.1bn net during 2015, of which €14.9bn sat in ETFs.
“These records impressively demonstrate the importance of asset management companies as by far the largest managers of capital for retirement planning and wealth creation in Germany,” Naumann added.