Slow Growth in Singapore Disappoints Funds

American mutual fund companies have recently lowered sales projections in Singapore, once considered an untapped gold mine populated by wealthy investors. As a result, they have and begun pruning back underutilized funds with low portfolio balances, Reuters reports.
Despite Western investment providers' best efforts to coax more than $118 billion out of the Singaporeans' bank accounts, only $11.2 billion has flowed into mutual funds. Analysts now say Singapore has become a dustbin of 550 funds offered by 230 investment providers to few local investors.
Allianz Dresdner Asset Management and U.S. AIG Global Investment Group have both recently closed funds with low asset balances, and other mutual fund providers are looking to consolidate or eliminate laggard investment offerings for the same reason.
Cerulli Associates projects in a recent report last month that Singapore will become the smallest Asian investment market with fewer than $23 billion of assets under management by 2008.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
Money Management Executive
MORE FROM FINANCIAL PLANNING