Giant Aviva loses mutual fund battle

British group Aviva, one of the world's biggest investment fund managers, has lost much of its market share in Romania over the last three years, and now holds less than 1% of the over 4.3 billion-RON assets of the mutual fund industry.
With over 250 billion euros in funds worldwide, the assets managed by British group Aviva on the Romanian market hardly exceed 5 million euros. From its entry onto the Romanian market in 2007, when Aviva acquired Certinvest, which managed mutual funds with 15 million euros in assets, the market share of the British group on the Romanian market fell significantly from 5.7% to 0.5% at present. During this period, the overall assets of the mutual fund industry increased over five times to more than 1 billion euros.
Moreover, the fund manager missed the Stock Exchange rally in 2009, after pursuing a conservative investment strategy. Intercapital fund, one of the best-performing equity funds in the past, ended 2009 with a 12.7% yield, comparable to that of a monetary fund.
"We were not expecting the stock exchange rally to be so fast. I still believe it's not based on solid grounds and that it has been fuelled by the big financial institutions," said Eugen Voicu, chairman of management company Aviva Investors.