The first green shoots of recovery have sprouted in Europe's beleaguered fund industry, with investors putting more money to work for the first time since the onset of the financial crisis.

Stripping out low margin money market funds, the industry attracted net inflows of €52.4bn (￡45.2bn, $74.5bn) in the second quarter of the year, according to data from Lipper FMI. This breaks a run of outflows stretching back to the third quarter of 2007, which saw a combined €541bn pulled out of funds as the size of the European market slumped 35 per cent from its end-2006 peak to €2,717bn.

The net inflows in the second quarter were the strongest the industry has seen since the first quarter of 2006. Combined with a market bounce, this saw assets under management jump 14 per cent to €3,016bn.