The top investors in the ATX prime are still international investors, primarily from the UK and US as well as from the neighboring countries of Switzerland and Germany. Investors with a high exposure to Eastern Europe have further cut their positions sharply, and together with passive investors are among the largest sellers: These are the key messages of the updated study (cut-off date: 30 June 2009) “Institutional Ownership of the ATX prime” conducted on behalf of the Vienna Stock Exchange by the market intelligence company Ipreo.
Private investors are net investors in 2009 as well
USD 36.8bn or 90% of Austrian free float were identified and regionally allocated. The USD 25.8bn that can be allocated to institutional investors breaks down as follows: USD 21.8bn or 84.5% are held by international investors, around USD 4bn or 15.5% by Austrian investment funds, banks and insurance companies. A volume of USD 11bn is owned by Austrian private investors. Private households that had bought into the major ATX stocks - especially in the second half of 2008 - remained net buyers in the first half of 2009 as well.
Institutional investors from Switzerland and France raise allocation in ATX prime
In the first half of 2009, Austrian institutional investors moved up to third place again with an identified free float share of 15.5% in the country ranking (2008: 10.1%). The clear shift in the percentage in favor of Austrian institutional investors is not due to net buying, but mainly to higher prices. Foreign investors by contrast, have sold off more and have therefore profited less from the rising stock prices. Institutional investors from the US (21.6%) and UK (17.1%) stayed in the top ranks of places one and two, but there were some substantial outflows by these countries (adjusted for price effects minus ca 50% each). By contrast, significant gains were recorded by institutional investors from Switzerland (from 7% to 10.0%) and France (from 6% to 7.8%) and they ranked in place four and six by increasing the weighting in some ATX stocks. Place five was attained by investors from Germany that held 9.9% of the identified share of free float as of the end of June 2009. The largest net sellers in the first half-year 2009 were the Netherlands and Poland (adjusted for price effects, around minus 75%). For the first time over a longer period, Poland has dropped out of the group of the top ten countries investing in the ATX prime.