Changes in the Names of Polish Investment Funds vs. Fund Flows

There was conducted a survey on a sample of 176 Polish investment funds. It studied how the name changes affected the size of fund flows in the years 2008–2016. In the analysis of these changes, there were applied three criteria. The first was a change in the name of the fund resulting from the change of the name of the management company. The second criterion was the ability to combine new fund names with their investment strategies. The resulting set of changes was divided into positive changes (the new name suggested a new investment style for the fund), neutral and negative (fund names were not linked to the investment policy). The third criterion were the types of funds (there were four groups of changes: for equity, mixed equity, debt and money market funds). In order to determine the impact of changes in fund names on fund flows, there were used differences in average fund flows before and after changes. For detailed results, a second method was used – event analysis. Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that changes in fund names have an impact on the size of fund flows even within a period of up to twelve months. The largest inflow of capitals to funds was demonstrated for positive changes, especially in the period from four to nine months after the change. In turn, the largest outflow of capital for negative changes was noted mainly in the period from seven to twelve months.