Assets under management in the European fund industry decreased from €12.3 trillion on December 31, 2019, to €12.0 trillion on September 30, 2020, according to the European Fund Industry Review—2020 Year to Date from Refinitiv Lipper.

“This decrease was mainly driven by the performance of the underlying markets (-€531.0 bn), while net sales contributed estimated net inflows of €297.1 bn,” wrote Detlef Glow, Head of EMEA Research at Refinitiv Lipper.

“The European ETF industry enjoyed a further increase in popularity with all types of investors over the course of 2020, and as a result, ETFs have enjoyed inflows (+€45.8 bn) for 2020 so far.

“Given the general market environment, it was somewhat surprising to see a slight increase in assets under management from €870.0 bn at the end of December 2019 to €871.0 bn at the end of Q3 2020 despite a negative impact from the underlying markets (-€44.8 bn).”

For funds overall, equity funds (€4.4 trillion) were the asset type with the highest assets under management, followed by bond funds (€3.0 trillion), mixed-assets products (€2.1 trillion), money market funds (€1.5 trillion), alternative UCITS funds (€0.7 trillion), and real estate funds (€0.3 triliion).

“A more detailed view by asset type reveals that not all of them had inflows over the course of 2020 year to date,” wrote Glow.

“Bond funds (+€74.1 bn) was the best-selling asset type, followed by equity funds (+€54.3 bn), real estate funds (+€7.3 bn), commodities funds (+€7.0 bn), mixed-assets funds (+€5.7 bn), and “other” funds (-€3.5 bn).”

Looking at assets under management in the European mutual fund industry , BlackRock (€989.8 bn) was by far the largest fund promoter in Europe, followed by Amundi (€417.9 bn), JPMorgan (€393.09 bn), UBS (€353.0 bn), and DWS Group (€321.9 bn).