INVESTORS MOVE TO FOREIGN MARKETS

Funds' assets jump 33.5% to BGN 608.5m in 2009

Mass migration of local investors to the foreign capital markets is seen from Bulgarian National Bank's statistics for 2009. Investment funds' assets increased 33.5%, year on year, to BGN 608.5 million in 2009. The holdings of Bulgarian investors in foreign funds surged 72.5% to BGN 292.5 million. The assets of local investment schemes rose just 10% to BGN 316 million.

The gradual shift to the foreign capital markets started in the middle of 2009. Investments abroad increased just 7.7%, quarter on quarter, to BGN 178.1 million at the end of June. The real boom was observed in the third quarter of 2009, when the jump was 31% to BGN 233.6 million.

Reasons

The main reason for the better performance of foreign investment funds is the insignificant growth of the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE), Real Finance Asset Management's Daniel Dimitrov said. Some foreign indexes increased considerably, which additionally attracted investors' attention. That explains the higher returns reported by funds investing in Southeast and West Europe. Besides, the lack of IPOs and new quality stocks on the BSE encouraged institutional investors to look for quality issues through the funds that invest on foreign markets.
 
Bulgaria

The best performing local funds in 2009 were those investing in bonds. Their assets jumped 30.5% on a yearly basis to BGN 49.1 million. The biggest increase was registered in the third quarter, when assets rose 17.% to BGN 46.3 million.
The assets of funds investing in stocks went up 11% to BGN 154.7 million at the end of 2009. Balance schemes reported an increase of just 2.7% to BGN 109.7 million.