Facts, Facts and More Facts: Corporate class mutual funds – 2011 Wrap-up – Blog

Corporate class mutual funds wound up 2011 with $58.8 billion in assets which represents a 6.6% increase from the end of 2010. While this was more than respectable relative to the overall fund industry (whose asset base contracted by 0.37%), last year’s market and macroeconomic conditions conspired to obscure the mid-term rapid expansion of this sub-segment of the mutual funds industry. Over the past three years, corporate class fund assets have grown at a compounded annual average rate of 22.1%, exceeding that of the overall mutual fund industry (including exchange-traded funds) by 12.8%. With RBC’s recent entry into the segment, growth is unlikely to halt.

Paralleling the broad investment funds industry trend towards greater importance of solutions, in recent years fund wrap programs have also been driving growth in corporate class structure asset base. In 2011 corporate class fund assets within fund-of-fund structures expanded by 41.6% to end the year just shy of $11 billion. During all of 2011, corporate class funds brought in $8 billion in net flows; of that, $3.5 billion went into corporate class fund-of-funds portfolios, a 16.3% increase over 2010’s sales intake. We invite you to contact one of our analysts for more details on corporate class funds. Posted by Alexander Baker Alexander@iei.ca.