EUROPE - Fund groups in Europe no longer have to work blind as a result of a new data product, claims Rodney Williams, managing director of London-based FERI FMI, part of German wealth manager FERI Trust. He was speaking at the launch of FundFile in London.

The FundFile product is a web-based database, providing information on all Europe’s mutual funds and fund management groups. Initially the database covers 24,000 of the Europe’s 31,000 mutual funds, provided by 1,300 fund groups, and will include the remainder of funds in a matter of months. “We are providing 77% coverage immediately,” said Williams.

For the first time, monthly-updated data will be available for assets under management and sales flow figures. The net sales figure for the latest month and year is shown, using a FERI formula that strips out market performance from total net asset growth, the group said.

This data is part of the wide coverage given on fund groups and their products, analysing each fund’s investment category and sector, geographic focus, domicile legal structure, as well as share class data including charges, minimum investment, features such as Ucits status and countries of sale.

“Sales data, at the fund level, offers a layer of insight into fund group strategies that has not previously been available,” Williams said. “FundFile will become the engine of fund business development for those building local as well as cross border distribution.”

Fund groups have free access to see their own data on the system. FERI said that this helped ensure data accuracy and the correct profiling of managers’ businesses. “Fund groups expend a great deal of time and effort to deliver data to those offering external information services. It seems only fair they should be able to access the profiles that are based on this data, free of charge.”

Reports can be taken off the system from the website www.feri-fmi.com

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