Yordan Yordanov
ATTRACTIVENESS OF INVESTMENT FUNDS IN BULGARIA
Summary:
This paper addresses the issue of attractiveness of Bulgarian investment funds to various classes of investors over the last decade. It exploits data on AUM (assets under management), return, number of funds, risk profile of funds and fund managers in order to grasp trends in the investment fund sector. Also, the asset allocation in aggregate portfolio is traced, in order to determine the overall portfolio strategy.
It turns out, that the growth of AUM is not justified by the potential of household savings and nonbank financial institutions’ asset base. The average equally weighted funds’ return is below, while AUM weighted is slightly above benchmarks for 2015-2019.
The examination of the overall investment funds’ portfolio shows a strong bias towards “Cash” and “Other Investment Funds” allocation of assets. In depth examination of the portfolios of specific funds reveals an unwholesome practice of deviation from declared portfolio strategy. In addition, the low level of AUM per fund is likely to hurdle Bulgarian investment funds to offer competitive fees.
