Peter Kraus and his team at his startup took the lead last year among the smallest fund firms.

Peter S. Kraus Aperture Investors Chairman, CEO

This article draws from Morningstar Direct data on December 2019 open-end mutual fund and ETF flows, excluding money-market funds and funds of funds. More specifically, this article focuses on the 512 firms (up from 507 in November but down from 528 a year earlier) with less than $1 billion each in fund AUM. 237 of those firms gained net inflows in December, and the same number got net inflows for the full year.

Newcomer Aperture brought in an estimated $375 million in net inflows in 2019, more than any other sub-$1-billion-AUM fund firm. Other big 2019 inflows winners included: Horizon Investments, $360 million (up from $127 million); newcomer Aware, $341 million; Infinity Q, $329 million (up from $232 million); and Bramshill, $262 million (up from $30 million).

The inflows picture looked very different in December. Trust for Credit Unions led the pack with an estimated $90 million in net December inflows, up from $2 million in net November outflows. Other big December inflows winners included: Needham, $75 million (up from $8 million); Abbey Capital, $56 million (up from negligible outflows); Red Cedar, $52 million (up from $50 million); and Aware, $52 million (up from $18 million).

December newcomers included: Alpha Fiduciary, Axonic, Lebenthal, Raub Brock, and Standpoint Asset Management. Other 2019 newcomers included: Aegon Asset Management, Aperture, Aware, Cornerstone, Foothill Capital Management, Innealta, Karner Blue Capital, Kennedy Capital Management, Levin Easterly, North Capital, Overlay, Pacific Global, Palm Valley, Red Cedar, Rimrock Funds Trust, RYZZ Capital Management, Sofi, Strategic Asset Management, Tactical Fund Advisors, and Xsquare Capital.

On the flip side, 2019 was a rough year for James Advantage, which suffered an estimated $609 million in net outflows, more than any other sub-$1-billion-AUM fund firm but down from $1.382 billion in 2018. Other big 2019 outflows sufferers included: Highland, $408 million (down from $580 million); Power Mutual Funds, $384 million (up from $5 million); WBI, $316 million (up from $117 million); and Elements, $282 million (up from negligible flows).

Like on the inflows side, the December inflows picture looked a bit different from that of the full year. Eagle MLP led the pack with an estimated $147 million in net December outflows, up from $27 million in November. Other big December outflows sufferers included: Equinox, $143 million (up from $12 million); Gerstein Fisher, $82 million (up from $12 million); LS, $62 million (up from $13 million); and James Advantage, $40 million (up from $27 million).

As a group, the 512 fund firms with less than $1 billion each in fund AUM suffered an estimated $690 million in net 2019 outflows, equivalent to about 0.74 percent of their combined AUM. That's down from $2.669 billion in net 2018 inflows, equivalent to about 2.89 percent of AUM.

For December alone, those same small fund firms suffered an estimated $87 million in net outflows, equivalent to about 0.09 percent of their combined AUM. That's down from $164 million and 0.18 percent in November.

Across the entire industry, the 773 fund firms tracked by M* brought in a combined $419.312 billion in net inflows into long-term mutual funds and ETFs in 2019, equivalent to 2.02 percent of industry AUM. That's up from $162.401 billion in 2018. 353 firms generated net 2019 inflows.

In December alone, the industry brought in an estimated $67.673 billion in net inflows, equivalent to 0.33 percent of industry AUM and up from $55.224 billion in November. Passive funds brought in an estimated $72.573 billion in net inflows in December (up from $55.119 billion in November), while active funds suffered $5.009 billion in net outflows (down from $105 million in net inflows). 

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