The battle for Alt Ucits cash: winners revealed

Standard Life Investments received the greatest volume of inflows into its Alternative Ucits strategies over the course of 2012, according to Geneva-based research firm Alix Capital.

According to its end of year report, the company, which compiles Alt Ucits indices and analysis, said the Edinburgh-based firm saw its assets under management rise to €17.4 billion over the course of the year.

This equates to a 59.8% rise in assets compared to the end of 2011. Alix Capital said this was mainly driven by increased investor interest in the firm’s raft of multi-strategy Alt Ucits fund.

Standard Life Investments' multi strategy sdwarfed its competitors with a 63.7% increase in AuM in 2012 to €17.15 billion - almost 50 times greater the next largest Alt Ucits multi strategy.

The group's increased level of inflows bettered the performance of Swiss asset management firm GAM, which saw its assets under management rise 41.2% over the course of the year to sit at €12.5 billion.

This was driven by an increase in its fixed income assets (see table below).

Elsewhere in the report, which covers performance and assets under management, it said UK-based fund managers M&G almost doubled its assets under management, ending the year with €10.8 billion in its Alt Ucits funds.

Sector leaders by AuM at the end of 2012

Alternative Ucits Fixed Income Funds

Equity Long/Short Alt Ucits Funds

Within macro strategies, BNY Mellon doubled its Alt Ucits AuM in 2012 to €9.8 billion, up 94.9% over its two funds, Newton Real Return and BNY Mellon Global Real Return. This is over seven times the AuM of the second largest macro advisors, Aquila Capital, with assets of €1.4 billion.

According to Alix Capital’s industry wider data, which takes in 802 single manager funds and 80 fund of funds, the total assets under management for the Alt Ucits industry now sits at €140 billion.

The release of the Alix Capital figures come hot on-the-heels of a report by Luxembourg-based asset management firm Alceda, which indicated there had been slow but continued growth in the number of available Alt Ucits funds.

The Alix Capital report focuses across the European market, while the Alceda report is centred on a narrower basket of Alternative Ucits providers.