Number one retail funds manager ANZ Investments went backwards in the September quarter, according to the latest Plan for Life (PFL) analysis, shedding 1 per cent market share.
The PFL figures show ANZ retail funds under management (FUM) slipped down almost $300 million (or -0.9 per cent) in the three months ending the period with a paltry $29.037 billion compared to the $29.3 billion reported on June 30 last year.
Overall ANZ retail market share fell to 24.1 per cent as at September 30, 1 per cent below the previous quarter end and 1.5 per cent less than 12 months prior.
However, according to an ANZ spokesperson, the backwards statistical step reflects the wind-up of the bank’s $3 billion plus Bonus Bonds product last year. ANZ Investments managed the Bonus Bonds assets, which appeared in its fixed income and cash funds count.
Despite the Bonus Bonds cashout, ANZ has more-or-less kept pace with average growth-rates in the KiwiSaver sector, up almost 6 per cent to hit $16.4 billion in the September quarter, PFL data shows. The three-scheme ANZ KiwiSaver FUM also rose 7.3 per cent to just under $17.6 billion in the final three months of 2020, according to Morningstar.
Again reflecting the Bonus Bonds effect, for the 12 months ending September 30, ANZ recorded the second-lowest annual FUM growth-rate of 1.4 per cent, above the perennial laggard, AMP, which eked out a 1 per cent gain for the year (and a 2.5 per cent increase over the quarter).
Squeezed between ANZ and AMP (ranked first and fourth, respectively, in the PFL retail tables), bank-owned managers ASB and BT/Westpac also reported lack-lustre annual and quarterly growth-rates with both falling under the average. ASB, the second-largest manager, grew FUM by 4.4 per cent over the 12-month period and 3 per cent in the quarter against the respective averages of 7.6 per cent and 3.4 per cent: similarly, BT/Westpac was up 4.2 per cent for the annual period and 2.8 per cent over the quarter.
As per recent trends, mid-tier and contender managers have picked up the crumbs falling off the top-of-the-table firms with Milford, BNZ and Booster, in particular, stacking on weight.
Milford, now the fifth-largest retail manager in the PFL list, grew 22.5 per cent over the 12-month period to reach almost $9.3 billion. Although still $2.5 billion shy of AMP, Milford increased market share by 0.9 per cent for the 12 months ending September 30 while AMP gave up a further 0.6 per cent to rivals.
While coming off a smaller base than Milford, the $3.2 billion BNZ recorded the highest annual growth-rate for the annual period (up 27.1 per cent) and quarterly expansion of 7.4 per cent, more than double the average.
Booster, reporting about $2.4 billion in FUM at the end of last September, had the second-highest growth-rate for both the quarter and year of 8.9 per cent and 23.4 per cent, respectively.
Fisher Funds (which replaced AMP as the fourth-largest KiwiSaver provider in the December quarter) and Kiwi Wealth also garnered respective double-digit annual growth-rates of 15.4 per cent and 14.6 per cent.
Contender firms outside the top 10 managers continued to outperform in aggregate, growing collective FUM almost 16 per cent over the 12-month period and 6.7 per cent during the September quarter. The up-and-coming ‘other companies’ include Simplicity and Generate, which have built challenger brands primarily in the KiwiSaver market.
Total NZ retail FUM was up almost $4 billion over the September quarter and more than $8 billion compared to 12 months previously, according to PFL.
“Overall Retail Managed Funds at the end of September totalled NZ$120.6bn, climbing 7.6% over the past year,” the PFL report says. “Continued substantial net fund flows into KiwiSaver was the main driver of this growth while the other sub-markets all saw net outflows. The overall annual investment return on funds was just a modest 3.1%.”
As at September 30, KiwiSaver represented just under 61 per cent of all retail FUM after growing 15.5 per cent in 12 months. By contrast, other non-superannuation retail funds (just over $40 billion) saw FUM drop by 2.7 per cent in the year and 1.3 per cent in the three months to the end of September.
For the 12 months, gross retail funds reached almost $37 billion, PFL reports, representing an increase of roughly $7 billion on the same period in 2019.
“Gross Inflows jumped by almost a quarter, or 24.1% to NZ$9.1bn over the past twelve months,” the PFL study says. “Most of the main companies posted large double digit percentage increases in their Inflows including in particular Booster (65.0%), Milford (61.8%), AMP (53.1%), BNZ (36.3%), Generate (31.6%), Kiwi Wealth (31.0%), Fisher (30.3%) and ANZ (25.1%).”
The Melbourne-headquartered PFL, headed by Rael Solomon, is part of the global proxy voting and data analytics group, Institutional Shareholder Services.