Stock Market Bounce Good For Guernsey Fund Market

byTracey Ellis, Guernsey Press And Star

29 September 2003

This story is reproduced by kind permission of This Is Guernsey at http://www.thisisguernsey.com

Funds under management went up by 5.5% to £36.1bn during the second quarter of this year.

Chris Hill, chairman of the Guernsey Fund Managers’ Association, said that figures released by the Financial Services Commission were very encouraging.

‘There was something of a bounce in the market so they [the figures] would have improved, but it was still good to see the largest movement in the open-ended market for some time,’ he said.

Mr Hill said that part of the attraction for fund sponsors looking for a management company, particularly for specialised funds, was the expertise of the local workforce.

‘That is being recognised in these figures,’ he said.

There has been a jump in stock market valuations since February that Mr Hill believed was a good sign of optimism.

‘Guernsey was ahead of the trend for the period and the markets are generally encouraging,’ he said.

The value of open-ended funds rose by 11.3% to £18.4bn, which included new investments of £2.6bn.

In the closed-ended business, the value of funds remained static at £17.7bn, although the number of holders jumped from 38,557 to 47,700. Of the 323 registered closed funds, 58% were venture capital and 11% were property. Emerging markets and technology each represented 5%.

Peter Moffatt, director of investment business at the GFSC, added that there was also significant growth in the number of non-Guernsey schemes using local administration or custody services. These rose by 12.6% to £10.4bn.

The value of funds in Jersey rose by 2.6% to £98.3bn during the same period.

Recommended