Lipper, a global leader in fund flow data, has released November figures for the European exchange-traded fund industry showing strong growth with assets under management (AUM) increasing by €13.1bn during the month.
ETFs listed in Europe reach $457.4bn in assets according to Lipper.
The increase was driven by a combination of market performance (+€10.0bn) and net inflows which accounted for €3.1bn. AUM in the European ETF industry now stands at €457.4bn with the majority held in equity funds (€334.8bn), followed by bond funds (€105.6bn) and commodity products (€13.1bn).
During November equity funds enjoyed the highest net inflows (+€2.2bn), followed by bond funds (+€1.2 bn) and commodity products (+€0.1bn). These flows brought the year-to-date total to €65.9bn of net inflows.
Assets under management are primarily invested in ETFs tracking US equities (€65.2bn), eurozone equities (€48.3bn), European equities (€29.3bn), and Global equities (€25.8bn). During the month however, net inflows were mostly seen into European corporate and high yield bond ETFs (+€0.6bn each) and Global equities (+€0.6bn) which, according to Lipper, is reflective of investors using ETFs to implement market views and short-term asset allocation decisions. Conversely, categories such as short-term eurozone government bond ETFs (-€556m), euro money market ETFs (-€392 m), and eurozone equities (-€294 m) faced net outflows.
By provider, the largest European ETF issuer is iShares with €229.5bn and accounting for 49.5% of the overall assets. Second place is held by db x-trackers (€55.9bn) followed by Lyxor (€47.5bn). Net sales during November saw iShares gather the most net assets (+€1.8 bn), followed by Source (+€0.5bn) and db x-trackers (+€0.4bn).
Of the 2,081 funds listed as ETFs in the Lipper database at the end of November, 104 held assets above €1.0bn and accounted for 58.2% of the overall assets in the European ETF industry, indicating a concentrated market. This market dynamic was further supported by the fact that only a quarter of these funds saw inflows this month with 1,509 funds seeing no flows or net outflows for the month.
The best selling ETF for November was the iShares Euro High Yield Corporate Bond UCITS ETF, accounting for net inflows of €572m, followed by the iShares Core S&P 500 UCITS ETF (+€402m) and iShares Core Euro Corporate Bond UCITS ETF (+€381m).