German funds book best results at home

German open-ended funds (GOEFs) turned in a wide range or preformance in 2012 but funds focusing on their domestic market outperformed, IPD's German index revealed.

Funds focusing on Germany substantially outperformed their peers with both a European and a global focus, according to IPD's German Monthly Open Ended Fund Index (OFIX). Funds focusing on Germany generated an annual return of 2.7% against 0.0% for funds with a European focus and -1.0% for those with a global focus.

The liquidation of a large number of funds also dragged down the index performance in 2012, said Daniel Piazolo, managing director of IPD in Germany.

In December the monthly performance of all OFIX funds came to 0.1%. The sub-index for funds mainly invested in Germany stood at 0.1%, slightly less than for funds focused on European markets, which registered 0.2%; this was however much better than for globally investing funds, which returned -0.5%.

The findings are based on IPD’s latest monthly report for Germany for December and the year 2012 as a whole. In total, 10 out of 22 OFIX funds were liquidated in 2012, Piazolo said.

'Vehicles in liquidation generated losses of between -2.3% and -22.4% in the year 2012, while the majority of funds remaining on the market achieved annual returns in the range 2-3%. Those funds that remain open for business achieved results on par with those for 2011 and 2010, though considerably below their long-term average'.

The OFIX indices are published monthly by IPD Investment Property Databank and track the latest performance trends for open-ended property funds. The OFIX index covers 100% of the 22 German open-ended real estate funds targeting retail investors.
By end-December 2012, these funds had assets of €73.7 bn in terms of net asset value.