The closed-end fund segment has seen some strong development in the past year, especially due to the administrators who launched alternative products. Closed-end funds now invest in foreign currency, energy, art, real estate and so on.
With a nose-diving bourse in the backdrop, these exotic funds thrive, and bring profit to investors.
At the end of September, realty investment fund Certinvest PropertiesRo topped the charts with a yield of 16.4% over the past 12 months.
Second and third place went to another two funds managed by Certinvest: Leader, which invests in short-term funding instruments, with a yield of 15.5%, and Everest, a fund with a flexible investment policy, which has a yield of 12.5%.
On the opposite end of the chart there are closed-end funds that invest in stock. The BT Invest 1 fund, managed by BT Asset Management, posted a loss nearing 26% in the past 12 months, while another stock fund managed by Globinvest saw a loss of 24.8%.
The 20 closed-end funds active on the Bucharest bourse reported assets worth a total 237.3 million at the end of September, up some 30% since the beginning of the year.
(English version by Andrei Circhelan)