Pricop (AAF): Investor number grew by 24% in last 12 months

The investment fund industry reached new historic levels in quarter 3, so that the value of administered shares grew by 24% against September 2020, while the number of investors reached 525,000 in the last 12 months, recording a 24% advance, said Jan Pricop, executive director of the Association of Fund Administrators (AAF) on Tuesday, at a debate organized by Bucharest Stock Exchange and AAF.   He pointed out that open investment fund segment which addresses mainly retail investors, has recorded a positive evolution in the last quarter.   “We had again net positive incomes, in trend with what has happened, with the evolution since the beginning of the year. Practically, we have a 23% increase of active stock, the increase is for bond funds and 12% for  instruments with fix income. For diversified funds we have an important  stock increase of 74%, for share funds we have a stock increase of 102.3% and we also have an increase of 24.3% for funds included in the “other funds”category, in the last 12 months”, Pricop pointed out. At the same time, there was an important increase of the number of investors in the bond fund segment, with a plus of 51,000 investors.   As for net incomes, Pricop mentioned that compared to September 2020 there is a change of trend. “Lats year we recorded net outcomes in September, this year we register net incomes,” and net incomes this quarter are dropping by 61% compared to the previous quarter.   The number of investors grew by 30% against September 2020 and in quarter 3  it was 7%.   In his turn, Horia Gusta, the president of AAF, said that the last year brought “important and interesting figures, closely related to the main stock exchange indexes.”   “Compared to the end of September 2020, today we have 100,000 more investors in the asset management industry. Today, the whole industry has 524,000 investors in open and closed funds, in alternate funds. While a year ago we had 16,300 investors in stock funds, today the number is more than double: there are over 33,000 investors and stock also doubled,” Gusta said.   He showed that “profits delivered to investors by stock funds is an important aspect”. “We have profits starting with 45% top 5 and continue to 65% in the last 12 months. I think there are profits drawing everybody's attention, profits coming from a very transparent industry, very well supervised which comes to meet the needs of people who have resources to save by means of funds,” Gusta also said.