Colonial wins gold but MLC up on platform

By Rebecca Evans

The combined Commonwealth/Colonial group has prevailed as the dominant force in the retail managed funds industry, despite registering a drop in inflows of $616 million for the year to date as it struggles to combat the emergence of new players in the market, according to a new report by Assirt Research .

Commonwealth/Colonial dominates with its total investment management funds totalling $78.7 billion — a 12 per cent market share — ahead of Macquarie, which has 9 per cent of the market.

This compares to 8 per cent for AMP and 7 per cent each for BT /Westpac and State Street Global Advisors .

Assirt says despite its substantial size advantage, emerging players are making it more difficult for Commonwealth/Colonial to stay on top.

“The challenge of maintaining market leadership is reflected in the loss of some retail market share in distribution,” Assirt says.

The National/MLC group was not included in the total investment management funds figures because it is predominantly a platform provider with no investment management, according to Assirt.

The group dominates the platform arena, with $35 billion under advice, almost $10 billion more than its nearest rival, AMP.

However, it was the Commonwealth/Colonial group which had the highest inflow figures in the platform market for the quarter, receiving $1.2 billion.

BT/Westpac came in second with an inflow of $893 million, while St George took in $512 million and Macquarie received $504 million.

Other notable performers during the June quarter include AXA , which took in $605 million to achieve the highest retail net inflow of funds. It also took in the second highest amount over the year to June behind UBS, which received $2.3 billion over the 12 month period.