Six SAIs, of the 19 which operated last year on the mutual fund market, made up 91 percent of the total losses posted on this market, worth RON 17.7 mln (€5.3 mln, at the average annual exchange rate of RON 3.6/€1). Most of them are part of banking groups: BT Asset Management, BCR Asset Management, OTP AM, and Pioneer AM. These controlled more than 55 percent of the total assets of mutual funds on 31 December, worth €236 mln, but made up 71 percent of the industry’s losses.
BT AM, which posted the largest losses last year (€1.7 mln), said these are due to investments. BCR AM registered losses worth almost €1 mln last year, and Erste Asset Management Romania (EAM), which took over its business in the meantime, was still in the red at the end of the first half of 2009.
“We concentrated most of the investments (especially in IT) in the first six months and will try to recover in the second half of this year, based on funds with monetary and bond placements. We hope that diversified funds will have a more significant contribution,” Dragos Neacu, Chief Executive Officer of EAM, said.
