Cash flow into German funds, listed companies at record levels

The flow of money into German listed and non-listed indirect real estate investments over the first nine months was €13.9bn, an increase of 42% year on year, according to a new report from capital markets advisory Barkow Consulting. This is the highest amount since the onset of the financial crisis.

According to CEO Peter Barkow, “Indirect capital flows are up for a post-crisis record year compensating for the weak closed-end funds market. The previous post-crisis record was in 2013 with inflows of €17.3bn.

The third quarter saw inflows into German listed companies of €1.1bn in equity placements. Barkow says Q3 is usually heavily depressed by the holiday season. The previous strongest Q3 was in 2013 with only €0.6bn.

Over the first three quarters of this year, equity placements – including IPOs and capital raisings of all kinds - came to €5.8bn, already exceeding by 25% the full-year 2014.

Although €310m of equity has already been placed in Q4, Barkow said he expects much less activity than in the previous three quarters because of a more challenging IPO environment.

In the open-ended funds sector, nine-month net inflows amounted to €2.6bn, a rise of 49% year on year, despite the large number of German open-ended funds currently being wound up. "Public OEFs continue their turnaround with inflows for the first nine months slightly exceeding average post-crisis inflows of €2.4bn. Nonetheless, reaching pre-crisis levels of up to €22bn annually still seems an unlikely scenario at present," said Barkow.