Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Robert Lee - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods
Robert Lee - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods
Real quickly in the fixed income business, clearly sales have picked up as you said very noticeably but the redemption rate which tends to run high in the business has also picked up and it seems like its kind of remained high, would you attribute that predominately towards just an increasing mix towards the ultrashort products and maybe if we can get some color as to what proportion of either sales or assets that’s kind of running at. My sense is those assets can be a little more flighty over time.
Christopher Donahue
Over time you’re exactly right. During the quarter the sales of ultrashort funds were a little over $2 billion and the redemptions were just under $500 million. So you can figure out what the net was there of positive sales that contributed to the 2.6. This money when it comes in tends to come in and then when it goes out it tends to go out.
So the 500 against the $2 billion is really not as meaningful as when people want to buy the ultrashorts, they really want to buy the ultrashorts.
Robert Lee - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods
And maybe follow-up on the institutional business, you talked about the successes you’re seeing in the institutional fixed income business, can we just a little bit more about what, you mentioned $170 million mandates to fund, can you talk a little bit more about the RFP pipeline, what you’re hearing from potential clients out there, if you see the RFP pipeline actually building at this point.
Raymond Hanley
The RFP pipeline has built during 2009. Its probably up about 33% and it has shifted over the last four quarters from being two thirds equity and one third fixed to just about the opposite now. So the fixed income RFP pipeline in particular has built up and its very active. We’re in more finals, we’re winning more business.
As we mentioned a number of the wins actually end up billing into institutional fixed income products but we’re certainly seeing increased activity there and the investment performance has been a key factor there and we’ve added resources to the institutional sales operation at Federated and its another example of how we’ve been able to invest in the business and grow over a period where many other companies were pulling back resources.
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