This article first appeared in Personal Wealth, The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on June 6 - June 12, 2016.

Gender equality has made great strides in many parts of the world, but progress still seems to be slow in the fund management industry, according to a new report by Citywire Smart Alpha, a London-based financial publishing and information group. The report titled “Alpha Female”, released on May 26, says only 7% of the funds sold to the public globally are run by women, based on the information in its database. 

The report says only about 10% (1,562 out of 13,488) of global fund managers are female, and only 14% of the funds globally (3,302 out of 23,810) have a female manager, which account for 14% of assets under management 

(US$1.7 trillion out of US$12.7 trillion) in open-ended mutual funds. 

While the participation of women in the global fund management industry is low, their overall performance ranks just slightly below their male counterparts, according to the report. About 21% (334 out of 1,562) of female fund managers received a good rating for their investment performance based on their individual three-year, risk-adjusted returns as at end-March, compared with 23.5% (3,180 out of 13,488) of their male counterparts. 

The countries with the highest percentage of female fund managers are Spain (27%), France (18%) and Italy (15%). Meanwhile, only 7% of the fund managers in the US are women.

The results of the “Alpha Female” report is based on Citywire Smart Alpha’s database, which covers 15,229 fund managers across the globe. The report can be found on http://view.ceros.com/citywire/smart-alpha-issue-1/p/1

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