Rich investors have 43.8 million RON (10.3 million euros) in the individual accounts managed by fund managers, over 60% more than at the end of last year, because of the growth generated by the spring rally of the Bucharest Stock Exchange.
Individual accounts are investment products mainly aimed at wealthy people. The amount required to open such an account ranges from 100,000 to 400,000 RON. The investor who holds an individual account gets flexibility and personalised investments in exchange for a 2-3% annual management fee.
Seven asset management companies out of the total 24 on the market managed individual accounts with net assets worth 43.8 million RON at the end of July. Compared with 2008, the assets of the accounts posted an over 60% increase, mainly helped by the performance of the stock market, but also by the new clients added in the first quarter. According to the statistics supplied by the National Securities Commission (CNVM), the assets of this industry rose by 50% in the first three months of the year alone, reaching 40.7 million RON.
Raiffeisen Asset Management is the leader of the market, as it manages accounts worth 22.6 million RON, followed by Aviva Investors, which manages accounts worth 14 million RON.
"The performance of the Stock Exchange in the first half along with the positive trend of subscriptions in accounts led to the growth of the industry. However, the development level remains low compared with other markets in Europe," said Mihail Ioan, chairman of Raiffeisen Asset Management.
In the first half of the year, the BET index, which gauges the performance of the ten most liquid listed companies, rose by 15.5%, while BET-FI, the index of the five financial investment companies (SIFs), rose by almost 25%.
"There are clients who open an account with 2 million RON only to make monthly withdrawals later, or clients that invest in it every month. The approximately 35 accounts we manage mainly invest in fixed income instruments and got higher yields than bond funds in the first half," said Razvan Rusu, chief investment officer of Aviva Investors company. The average yield of the funds investing in bonds exceeded 6% in the first half.
