Alternative products were again the most popular type of managed investment product registered in the last financial year, according to analysis of product attributes by APIR Systems.

APIR identifies, codes and manages reference data for unlisted financial products. In its 30 years of operation, it has identified over 30,000 individual financial products.

According to APIR chief executive, Chris Donohoe, products identifying as alternatives accounted for approximately half (52.57 per cent) of the new registrations for a third consecutive year. The alternatives category covers a broad range of asset types and registrations predominately comprised of mortgage and single asset property funds.

“While registrations of equities funds were up in number on the previous year, they were down as a percentage of total registrations, accounting for 25.81 per cent of new registrations. Registrations of both fixed income products at 14.91 per cent and cash/cash equivalent products at 7.43 per cent were slightly higher than the two previous years. 

“The majority of new registration - 86.50 per cent - stated the investment objective as income and growth or income only. This ties in with a move to more frequent distribution of income, with 65.14  per cent of funds distributing monthly or quarterly,” Mr Donohoe says.

The vanilla managed investment product continues to be the fund classification of choice, with 554 new registrations, up from 493 last year.  Interestingly, the number of registrations of both fund of fund products (up 54.75 per cent), and real estate investment trusts products (up 76.47 per cent), were significantly higher that the three-year rolling average.

“Over half of the registrations (57.84 per cent) had a domestic geographical focus, 31.49 per cent had a global (including Australia) focus and 10.68 per cent had an international (excluding Australia) focus.”

“There was significant growth in the number of wholesale products registered compared to the previous two years.  In all, 46.89 per cent identified as wholesale products, however, retail funds - at 47.57 per cent - remain the highest category,” Mr Donohoe says.

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