De facto agreement with Bundesbank statistics
If we consider that the aggregation categories between the Bundesbank and the survey by the author are different and dissimilar in coverage, it may be confidently stated that the results are de facto ‘equal’, as may be discerned from Table 5 in the ‘Crossovers from the author’s survey to the Bundesbank statistics’. In relation to the scale, demarcation differences of several billion euros can effectively be disregarded - even the remaining relatively major classification differences between ‘other enterprises’/‘private organisations and others’ in the case of the Bundesbank on the one hand and ‘commercial enterprises’/‘others’ in the author’s survey on the other can be explained, and would in the context certainly not have made further investigations any more meaningful.
Apart from the various types of classifications in the Bundesbank statistics on the one hand and the author’s survey on the other, other system-based approaches may also produce different results: for example, the corresponding Bundesbank questionnaire only leaves room on the pre-printed form 10380 for one kind of unit-holder under the heading ‘unit-holder type’, which – if there is more than one – the main type of unit-holder then has to check. In his survey, however, the author intentionally emphasises in each case the exact volume of the funds sources per fund for each individual unit-holder. This different system therefore certainly makes it possible (to give an extreme example) for three specialised investment funds with a volume of three times 100 units, which in each case predominantly belong to one investor from the insurance branch, but 49% of whose volume is in each case held by non-German investors, are shown, quite correctly, in the Bundesbank statistics at 300 volume units under the investor heading ‘insurers’, but in the author’s survey are shown as 153 units for the insurance investor group, on the one hand, and as 147 units for the investor group ‘foreign specialised investment funds holders’.
Market shares of specialised investment fund providers
Once again, the insights shown by the distribution of the investment trust company (ITC) groups’ market share as at the end of 1999 are informative (see Table 6). With the volume of the market as a whole surging ahead by a good 28% (previous year +31%), the previous trends of the relative shifts in market share are continuing, with one exception. The specialised investment funds volumes of the investment trust companies of the major/regional banks may be growing strongly, following the merger of two investment trust companies (Allfonds/Bayerische KAG), but below the levels of market growth at +21.2%, which means that in relative terms the market share of this ITC group is falling. This statement is even more applicable to those investment trust companies which are subsidiaries of foreign banks, as these are growing in terms of funds volume by only 15.3%, and in terms of fund numbers by only 6.3%, although both now appear, all the more surprisingly, under the investment trust companies offering specialised investment funds, with the group of foreign bank subsidiaries now constituting the strongest individual group in terms of numbers. Apart from name changes, 1999 saw four new specialised investment fund providers emerging as investment trust companies in the group of foreign bank subsidiaries: CDC (Caisse de Depôts et Consignations), DG Panagora, Goldman Sachs and Lazard. The ‘others’ group also grew by less than the average in 1999, both in terms of funds volume and in fund numbers. In terms of relative market share in the specialised investment funds investment medium, even the ‘other ITCs and foreign bank subsidiary ITCs’ declined in 1999.
Considerably stronger than the market as a whole (see Table 7) was the expansion during 1999 in terms of fund volumes (+46.8%) and fund numbers (+21.8%) of those investment trust companies representing insurance interests. There have obviously been huge shake-ups, to the benefit of insurance ITCs, and to the detriment of other ITC groups; such additions and disposals have never been seen before in the sources of the BAV statistics which form the basis of the net figures shown in Table 11.
In any event, the swings in the gross movements in placements in insurance enterprises/pension funds/death benefits funds investment units over the course of one year have never been quite as extreme as they were during 1999, when the gross figures for additions and disposals of investment units of these enterprises provide the following picture (figures in DMm):
Additions Disposals
Q1 +14,486 –3,617
Q2 +12,534 –4,216
Q3 +13,674 –6,013
Q4 +44,786 –15,436
Totals +89,480 –29,272
The positive balance of the additions amounted to DM60,208m, as shown in detail in Table 11.
In this instance, the number of insurance ITCs, following the merger of Hamburg Mannheimer Trust and Victoria KAG to form MEAG, has grown by only one company (MAM – Mannheimer Asset Management), ie, on balance, compared to the previous year, has remained constant.
The investment trust companies of the private banks (see Table 8) have halted a year-long relative downward trend and, thanks to above-average growth in funds volume (+33.5%) and fund numbers (+14.8%), have turned around.
The investment trust companies of the co-operative banks, and of the savings banks/state banks, also expanded by more than the market average over the past year, albeit to a lesser extent than in recent years: the growth in their market share was accordingly less than previously.
Microanalysis of market shares by ITC groups
The view of the global market share is even more informative if the market segments are arranged with the individual ITC groups and then broken down accordingly, as in Table 9. However, it has been taken into consideration that in the ITC groups of the co-operative banks, firstly, and secondly of the ‘others’, there are only a few ITCs in each, of which again in each case one or two dominate in terms of volume in such a way that individual conclusions may be drawn. With the classification of market share on the basis of structure of the specialised investment funds holders (Table 4) to the ITC groups as defined in Table 6, both of the ITC groups referred to above (co-operative banks and ‘others’) have therefore been omitted.
Even if ‘only’ 89.9% of the whole specialised investment fund volume is included in the survey, Table 9 nevertheless provides some surprising insights, because for each ITC group observed, the whole fund volume of the relative ITC group is recorded de facto and hence the comparison with previous years is possible.
Some marked shifts
The shifts in the investor structures for each of the ITC groups in 1999 are at times quite marked compared to 1998, and the following points stand out:
q The insurance industry is still, naturally, most strongly represented ‘among its own kind’ with its specialised investment funds, and is continuing to build up this share, with plus e20bn in 1999, and then among the ITCs of the private banks, and then among those ITCs which are foreign bank subsidiaries, also on a rising trend (+e1.9bn), and penultimately among the ITCs of the major and regional banks. The proportion of specialised investment fund holders which are attributable to the insurance industry remains in relative terms smallest among the ITC group of the savings banks/state banks, and declined further in 1999 in relative terms, although in absolute terms there was some growth in placements by this group, amounting to e3.8bn for the ITCs of the savings banks/state banks. What is, however, particularly notable is the relative decline in placements in specialised investment funds by this group of insurance enterprises in the private bank ITCs (despite an addition in absolute terms of +e4.3bn, and even more the decline in both relative and absolute terms (–e3.1bn) of the specialised investment fund placements by this group in the ITCs of the major banks and regional banks: in this case the massive shake-ups in specialised fund placements by the insurance enterprises group, already identified in another connection, could well also be quantifiably reflected in the capital market statistics.
qNot only did placements in specialised investment funds by the (German) social insurance institutions group almost double in 1999; for the first time they appeared among the specialised investment fund holders of the ITCs which are foreign bank subsidiaries. The biggest growth of this investor group was in the private bank ITCs, although with their investments in specialised investment funds in all other ITC groups has remained more or less well below average.
q Institutionalised pension schemes are most strongly represented in the ITC group of the major and regional banks (in absolute terms +e23bn), and the trend is rising, followed in placements in specialised investment funds by the ITCs of the private banks (likewise with a relatively upward trend, and in absolute terms +e5bn). This investor group is already in third place with the ITCs which are subsidiaries of foreign banks, albeit in this case on a slightly downward trend.
The obvious conclusion from the fact that the still sizeable share of this investor group in ITCs of foreign bank subsidiaries is that those institutions which wish to invest more outside Germany and outside the EC/EEA are therefore particularly strongly represented here because they wish to ‘buy’ expertise in foreign markets from the foreign parent companies of the ITCs. In any event, of the ITCs of the savings banks and state banks, and also of those ITCs representing insurance interests, the share of this investor group of institutionalised pension schemes remains well below average.
q The most striking fact, however, is the recent change in structure of the business enterprise specialised investment fund holders, and within this group under the category of ‘credit institutions, own security deposit funds’: for all ITC groups – with the exception of the ITC group of the insurance interests – placements in specialised investment funds in this whole branch are falling slightly in relative terms. However, this investment sector must be assessed differently, from commercial enterprises on the one hand and credit institutions/own security deposits on the other, which then gives the following, rather different picture.
Taken globally, it is true that both the placements in specialised investment funds by business enterprises (excluding own security deposit funds), as well as the own security deposit specialised investment funds on their own, are in relative decline; this is however certainly not true of all ITC groups. Placements in specialised investment funds by business enterprises are growing relatively strongly in ITCs of savings banks and state banks, but they are also rising in relative terms in ITCs of insurance interests. Accordingly, efforts by the ITCs of savings banks and state banks to shake off the image of own security deposit service providers and to attract more specialised investment funds of business enterprises could certainly be successful. On the other side, surprisingly, the ITCs of private banks and the ITCs of foreign bank subsidiaries are increasing their relative shares of own security deposit specialised investment funds.
q Among the other licensed specialised investment funds holders, the role of the major and regional bank and private bank ITCs continues to stand out. The three other ITC groups observed have below-average representation in this market segment, although the ITCs which are foreign bank subsidiaries have managed further to increase their relative share, having trebled it the previous year. Here, however, the assumption must also be that even the ‘charities’, with their specialised investment fund placements, are increasingly leaving Germany and the EC/EEA, and by opting for ‘foreign ITCs’, are looking to ‘buy into’ the market know-how of the parent banks on their home stock markets.
q In 1999, the business segment of foreign specialised investment fund holders shrank, not only in relative, but also in absolute terms, which has already been commented on in the observations on Table 4. Nevertheless, all ITC groups managed slightly to increase their relative shares of the remaining volume of non-German specialised investment fund holders, to the detriment of the ITC group of the private banks, which had in any case withdrawn from this business segment as at the end of 1999.
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