Managed funds reported a slump in investor inflows for the June quarter, according to two research reports.
Morningstar's latest report on asset flows found that managed funds lost $15.4 billion in the June quarter with equity funds taking the biggest hit.
According to Plan for Life data, retail managed funds fell $11.5 billion during the June quarter.
"Downbeat investors have clearly lost confidence in equities, the June quarter marked the eight consecutive quarterly outflow from equity funds," Morningstar fund research analyst Darren Cunneen said.
Major fund managers to lose over the quarter included Perpetual, Platinum Asset Management and Vanguard, the Morningstar report said.
It found that investors pulled just over $1 billion from passive fund manager Vanguard's domestic and international equity funds. Platinum's flagship international fund was hit by $262 million in outflows over the quarter, an ongoing trend that has cost the fund over $1 billion in the past year. Perpetual lost $649.6 million from its domestic and international equity products.
The Plan for Life report also found Perpetual's retail managed funds lost ground.
Perpetual experienced a 7.8 per cent fall, followed by National Australia Bank/MLC (-5.5 per cent), OnePath Australia (-5.4 per cent) and Macquarie (-4.4 per cent), it said.
Despite a number of major managers experiencing significant outflows, it was not all negative.
Boutique manager Magellan secured $183 million of inflows into its global equity fund over the quarter, the Morningstar report found. Magellan has now secured $510.6 million in inflows over the year.
RARE Infrastructure also secured additional inflows over the quarter, having attracted the largest flows in its asset class, according to Morningstar's data.
Plan for Life found that only BT Financial Group reported any growth in funds under management, with the retail manager reporting a 2 per cent lift in its managed funds while Mercer reported little change (-0.2 per cent). Commonwealth/Colonial (-2.1 per cent) and AMP (-2.5 per cent) reported slight falls.
Meanwhile, Morningstar's report found that compulsory superannuation flows kept investment managers afloat, with superannuation funds pouring $6.94 billion into investment managers.
"The ongoing influx of capital from compulsory superannuation monies continued to veil weak demand from the general investing public," Cunneen said.
"Sizeable superannuation inflows cushioned the blow for fund managers struggling with lacklustre flows from other sources."
