By Christopher Emsden

ROME--Italian asset managers had net outflows of 1.9 billion euros ($2.5 billion) in October, as clients sold equity and money-market funds and bought fixed-income funds, Assogestioni, the industry assocation, said Wednesday.

Despite the withdrawals, which total EUR7.8 billion for the year to date, total assets under management rose to EUR1.18 trillion, just EUR10 billion off the all-time high of 2007, Assogestioni said.

October's figure masked a net increase of EUR1.12 billion in purchases of bond funds, which have driven the sector all year. Equity funds continued to be sold off, as did money-market funds, according to Assogestioni's data.

Institutional clients were big sellers in October, upending a trend that has characterized 2012 so far.

Shares of asset management companies, such as Banca Generali SpA (BGN.MI), Mediolanum SpA (MED.MI) and Azimut SpA (AZM.MI), as well as Intesa Sanpaolo SpA (ISP.MI) and UniCredit SpA (UCG.MI), are sensitive to capital flows data as inflows boost their profits from fees and commissions.

Write to Christopher Emsden at chris.emsden@dowjones.com #CHCEmsden