SPAIN- The fall in assets in the Spanish mutual fund market during 2001 has been less severe than expected, according to data from Lipper. The overall assets under management of mutual funds domiciled in Spain went down by 3.4% to €177bn during last year.

Even though current market conditions and pessimism among investors could have been translated into significant outflows in the mutual fund market , the decrease in assets during 2001 -€6.4bn- is much lower than the €23bn lost during the previous year.

According to Lipper, 52% of the fall in assets under management in 2001 can be attributed to portfolio depreciation and the remaining 48% to redemptions made by shareholders.

Money market and bond funds which returned 3.54% and 3.82% respectively, were the only categories with positive average returns. The worst average performance was for euro equity funds (-19.39%) and equity international funds (-17.61%). Domestic equity funds managed returned -7.61%.

During December the mutual fund market in Spain had net inflows amounting to €182bn mostly invested in money market and short-term, bond funds.