Rising share prices are making Germans want to invest in funds and ETFs again.

Open-ended mutual funds recorded net inflows of 12.9 billion euros again last year, as announced by the German Investment and Asset Management Association (BVI) in Frankfurt on Tuesday. A year earlier, 3.4 billion euros had flowed out of mutual funds. However, new business is nowhere near the record inflows from the coronavirus years. BVI President Dirk Degenhardt spoke of "considerable new business" in view of the geopolitical crises and inflation. The BVI is also confident about the new year. "Fund sales got off to a positive start in 2024. This reflects the positive mood on the stock markets at the end of last year," said Degenhardt.

At EUR 12.9 billion (2022: EUR 0.5 billion), equity funds accounted for the lion's share of new investments in 2023, of which EUR 10.2 billion went into passive index funds (ETFs). Thanks to rising interest rates, bond funds were also in greater demand again: they achieved a turnaround with new business of EUR 12.7 (minus 16.5) billion. This was at the expense of mixed funds, which had been in high demand for many years and from which 15.5 billion euros flowed out. The crisis on the real estate market made itself felt in the second half of the year, but the bottom line remained in the black.

At the end of the year, a total of EUR 1.38 trillion was invested in open-ended mutual funds from providers such as DWS, Deka, Union Investment and Allianz Global Investors, which was eight percent more than a year earlier. However, the majority of the EUR 4.15 trillion managed by the industry is in open-ended special funds, which are set up for pension funds and insurers, for example, as well as in closed-end funds for institutional investors. According to BVI, the volume of funds and mandates has almost doubled over the past ten years, with assets under management growing by nine percent in 2023. New business amounted to 63 billion euros.

(Report by Alexander Hübner, edited by Myria Mildenberger. If you have any queries, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)