EU Alternative Investment Funds - Annual statistical report 2021 - ESMA
Tuesday 13 April 2021 ESMA Visit source websiteExecutive summary
Market structure and developments
The EU Alternative Investment Funds (AIF) market: The size of the
EU AIF universe continued to
expand to reach EUR 6.8tn in net asset value (NAV) at the end of
2019, a 15% increase from 2018.
The growth of the EU AIF market results from the launch of new AIFs
in 2019 and positive valuation
effects. Overall, AIFs accounted for 40% of the EU fund industry at
the end of 2019. Professional
investors own most of the shares of AIFs, yet retail investor share
is significant at 15% of the NAV, with
more retail participation in FoFs (28%) and RE funds (21%). AIFs
invest predominantly in the European
Economic Area (EEA) and across a broad range of asset classes
(securities, derivatives or funds). At
the aggregate level adjusted leverage declined slightly to 182% of
NAV (compared with 193% in 2018).
Overall, there are signs of potential liquidity mismatch at short
horizons, as the liquidity offered to
investors is greater than the liquidity of the assets, especially
for RE funds. This section also reviews
the impact of the COVID-19 related market stress on AIFs in
2020.