GERMANY - The German association of investment and asset management said Germany's investment management businesses grew by €60bn to €1.7trn in 2007, despite outflows from equity and bond funds.

Around 41% of these assets were funds reserved to institutional investors, Spezialfonds, which reached €692bn at the end of last year, said the BVI, the Bundesverband Investment und Asset Management.

"In 2007, the BVI-member institutions collected a total of €59.5bn of new investments," almost half of which (€28.7bn) was asset growth of the Spezialfonds, said the organisation in its presentation of the 2007 results of the Germany industry.

While fund-of-funds (Dachfonds) collected €2.1bn, the so-called ‘mixed funds' (Mischfonds) saw inflows of €9.8bn, equity-based funds (Aktienfonds) and purely bond funds (Rentenfonds) saw outflows of  €11.5bn and €17.6bn respectively.

The BVI's figures for both retail and institutional funds showed several of the large asset management firms suffered from this trend in 2007.

Among the biggest losers were Allianz Global Investors, Fidelity, Nordinvest, and Pioneer.

Wolfgang Mansfeld, the BVI's president, warned German investors lag behind in terms of high return investments: "We are not investing efficiently enough", he said.

Moreover, he predicts 2008 "will be the year of asset restructuring", as the Abgeltungsteue - a 25% withholding tax on the profits of private German investors - is set to come into force in 2009.

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