The Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) authorised on March 6 the launch of nine mutual funds, the commission said, as quoted by Dnevnik daily.

Greek asset management company Piraeus Asset Management will offer six mutual funds, from low- to high-risk. Three of them are of the “fund-of-funds” type, namely that they will invest in shares of alternative collective investment schemes. The bank is yet to announce when it will start selling shares.

The Corporate Commercial Bank (CCB) will offer two funds, the balanced CCB Balanced Fund and venture CCB Fund Assets. These are the first investment schemes of CCB after the company got a licence in November last year. CCB will also decide on when it will start selling shares at a later date.

DSK Imoti was scheduled to start offering shares on March 7 in all outlets of DSK Bank and would be soon listed on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange, Petko Krustev, chief executive of DSK Asset Management, was quoted by Dnevnik daily as saying. The fund will be sector-oriented and will mainly focus on real estate investment trusts (REITs). It will have a medium risk profile. For this reason, the recommended investment horizon for this mutual fund is 1-2 years.

Recently, EFG Eurobank Bulgaria, formerly Postbank, announced the launch of five mutual funds, taking the number of funds launched since the turn of the year up to 14.

The splash of mutual fund launches is more of a coincidence than a trend prompted by favourable market conditions, according to Nikolai Kostov, chief executive of FFBH Asset Management.

"It is the opposite, actually. Since the turn of the year, mutual funds have been reporting negative returns and client base outflow because of the downturn on the bourse,” he added. “The situation is hardly going to change any time soon. The pick-up in the number of mutual funds has that underlying forward-looking rationale, namely preparation now for the better times on the bourse.”

Still, others believe that the diversification of investment portfolios makes economic sense, Kostov said.

Tsvetoslav Tsachev at Elana brokerage agreed, saying that the mutual funds' launch ran in no correlation to current market conditions. The time necessary to prepare a mutual fund for launch is usually longer than a period for positive or negative price adjustments on the bourse. The “mass” launch of mutual funds, therefore, has little correlation with market fluctuations.

“Possibly, the FSC has opted for a one-off announcement of mutual funds' approvals,” he said.

Tsachev does not expect mutual funds to take off in terms of attractiveness; he would, rather, subscribe to the continued client migration from alternative investment schemes to deposits in view of the mass pick-up in interest rates on banking savings accounts.