GERMANY - The declining bond and equity markets in the second quarter caused the volume of German institutional funds (Spezialfonds) to decline by €5bn to €630bn, according to German fund industry association BVI.

BVI said that while German Spezialfonds took in €13.3bn from investors during the second quarter, this was not enough to make up for the market-driven decline in total volume.

"Since the lion's share of Spezialfonds are bond funds, the poor performance of bond markets was the biggest factor in the decline," the association noted. The correction on equity markets during the quarter also took their toll on the Spezialfonds.

These vehicles are favoured by German pension funds and other institutions, as they afford them great transparency, tax privileges and control over the investment process.

BVI also said another €158bn in assets were managed in an advisory capacity by its members. As a result, the total volume of institutional assets invested in Germany was €788bn on June 30 - down from €794bn on March 31.

The BVI statistics also showed that on June 30, Deutsche Asset Management and DWS, its retail sister, was Germany's biggest asset manager with €187.3bn in assets or a market share of 15.1%.

The number two spot was held by Allianz Global Investors which had €176.6bn in assets or a market share of 14.2%. AGI was followed by DekaBank, the asset manager tied to state-owned savings banks, with a 9.8% market share and Union Investment, the asset manager tied to German co-operative banks, with 9.6%.

DekaBank also held on to the top spot in terms of real estate funds with a 20.8% market share. However, the recent downsizing of DekaBank's embattled core German property fund has enabled Union Investment to close the gap somewhat.

Union had a 15.1% share of Germany's real estate fund market on June 30, followed by Commerzbank's CGI (10.6%), AGI's Degi (7.1%) and Deutsche Bank Real Estate (6.7%).

Finally, the BVI statistics put Oppenheim Immobilien-KAG (OIK), as the leading provider of real estate-type Spezialfonds. OIK has taken in €5.7bn in assets with the funds.