NZ retail funds market share figures remained mostly static during the 12 months to the end of March, according to new Plan for Life (PFL) data, as AMP recorded the largest movement either way after giving up 0.5 per cent to competitors.
The PFL March quarter report published last week shows AMP retail market share declined to 6.5 per cent as at March 31 this year compared to 7 per cent at the same date in 2022, equating to almost $10.3 billion and $10.1 billion, respectively, in nominal terms.
At the other end of the scale, Westpac/BT surprised by clawing back 0.4 per cent of the retail market over the 12-month period to end with 9.4 per cent share or more than $14.7 billion under management.
Milford Asset Management also carved out a further 0.3 per cent gain in market share over the 12 months to close on 10.2 per cent despite shedding 0.1 per cent during the first quarter of 2023.
The Auckland-based boutique now stands fourth in the NZ retail funds rankings with just over $16 billion under management and $1.8 billion behind the third-largest manager, Fisher Funds (including Kiwi Wealth assets), which saw its market share decline from 11.6 per cent at the end of March 2022 to 11.3 per cent a year later.
Meanwhile, Simplicity now manages 3.8 per cent of the NZ retail funds market (or $5.9 billion), up from 3.6 per cent 12 months previously and almost on equal terms with Booster ($6 billion).
Booster and BNZ both added 0.1 per cent in market share year-on-year with the latter accounting for 3.4 per cent of retail managed funds, equating to $5.4 billion.
ANZ, ASB and Mercer gave up between 0.1 to 0.2 per cent of the market each during the 12 months to March 31 while the share of smaller managers outside the top 10 collectively fell from 14.7 per cent to 14.4 per cent in a year when overall growth was flat.
“Retail Managed Funds at the end of March totalled NZ$157.2bn, virtually unchanged down by just 0.2% over the past year with the two market leaders ANZ (-0.8%) and ASB (-0.3%) both closely mirroring the overall market result,” the PFL report says. “In the meantime other major companies were mixed as Milford (2.9%), BT/Westpac (4.4%), Booster (3.4%), Simplicity (6.4%) and BNZ (5.0%) all finished higher while Fisher (-2.1%), AMP (-6.2%) and Mercer (-3.4%) declined.”
However, total gross inflows slowed by about a third over the 12-month period to under $30 billion compared to about $40 billion in the previous year.
Westpac was the only top 10 manager to record annual positive inflow growth (13.2 per cent) as Simplicity (-54.7 per cent) and Milford (-49.4 per cent) scored the worst in the relative metric.
PFL measures total KiwiSaver funds under management at almost $93.3 billion at the end of March, up 3.9 per cent for the year – although the Australian research house excludes perhaps $4 billion of restricted scheme money from its analysis.
Other non-superannuation retail funds went backwards by almost 5 per cent year-on-year to end March with just under $56 billion.