Industry sources said trusts run by UBS and Colonial First State were among the worst hit because of poor performance brought on by the savaging in debt-ridden Centro's shares, in which both had big investments.

The sources said UBS might have experienced a net outflow of up to $300 million since December as mandates from financial planners -- on behalf of small investors -- and institutions are withdrawn.

The market estimates that UBS might be seeing outflows of about $20 million a week.

But the sources were unable to put a figure on the outflows from Colonial First State, except to say they would not be surprised if it, too, has seen a similar-size outflow.

"Both UBS and Colonial First State were heavily overweight on Centro," the head of research with a ratings firm said.

And a leading fund manager said: "I understand UBS was the second-largest owner of Centro shares after Colonial."

According to Morningstar, UBS Property Securities fund, which managed $924.11 million, at March 31, showed a negative one-month return of 2.3 per cent and three-month return of minus 20.91 per cent.

Colonial First State Wholesale Property Securities trust, which managed $824.94 million at February 29, delivered a one-month return of 0.25 per cent and a three-month return of minus 17.52 per cent.

"I understand that Colonial actually increased its weighting in Centro in the days before its collapse last December," a Sydney-based source said.

A spokeswoman for Colonial First State said: "As of April 9, 2008, the Commonwealth bank group held 9.09 per cent of all issued shares in Centro Property Group. Around 3 per cent of the holding attributed to the group is managed by other fund managers via the FirstChoice platform. The rest is our active portfolios and index funds."

She added that any stock with exposure to unsecured short-term debt was currently feeling the effects of the credit liquidity issues in the market.

"These impacts are leading to earnings forecast downgrades," she said. "We are regularly monitoring developments."

The appropriate executive at UBS was unavailable for comment yesterday.

For different reasons, the highly rated RREEF Paladin was also experiencing outflows.

Industry-wide inflows have fallen by 70 per cent since October last year, a Sydney-based fund manager said. He said some fund managers were "treading water" until inflows become positive.

"Net flows are neither positive nor negative," said Louis Christopher, head of research with Adviser Edge Investment Research.

Mr Christopher said financial planners had lost confidence in listed property trusts and there was a general movement to cash.

Asset consultant Ken Atchison, who advises clients on $3billion of property investment, said: "Both UBS and Colonial out-performed their peers by as much as 2 per cent for many years."

In part, he said, these managers rode the upswing of Centro shares before it ran into trouble in December.

Concerned with their poor performance, Mr Atchison said many research houses were re-rating property securities funds, and asset allocators were looking to move their money.

Mr Atchison confirmed that on behalf of a client, he shifted money out of one of these managers in December.

He said financial planners and platform managers had been reviewing the managers' performance and "slowly and surely" they would advise clients to shift their money to managers with better performance.