In morning trade the Australian Ethical Investment Limited (ASX: AEF) share price has pushed higher.
At the time of writing the investment company's shares are up 3.5% to $2.53. This latest gain means its shares are now up 44% this year.
Why is the Australian Ethical Investment share price pushing higher?
Investors have been buying its shares this morning following the release of its first quarter funds under management (FUM) update.
According to the release, Australian Ethical Investment's FUM increased by 6.6% over the three months to September 30. This meant that at the end of the first quarter its FUM reached $3.64 billion, up from $3.42 billion as of June 30.
This comprised $110 million net inflows and $120 million of market movements. In respect to its net inflows, the company's Superannuation product accounted for the majority of them. $90 million of its net inflows came from these products.
This appears to show that investor interest in ethical investing remains strong.
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the case for many traditional fund managers. Australian Ethical Investment wasn't the only fund manager releasing a FUM update today.
Elsewhere, Perpetual Limited (ASX: PPT) released its first quarter FUM update and revealed a decline of $1.1 billion on the prior quarter. Total average FUM for the three months to September 30 fell to $26.6 billion.
And Pendal Group Ltd (ASX: PDL), formerly known as BT Investment Management, reported a 1% decline in FUM to $100.4 billion for the first quarter of FY 2020. This was despite favourable foreign exchange movements of $1.2 billion during the period.
It was also a similar story over at Platinum Asset Management Ltd (ASX: PTM) earlier this week. On Wednesday Platinum revealed that it experienced net outflows of approximately $274 million during the month of September.
