Although huge, all conquering, dollar-scooping behemoths of asset management would also seem to work.
Towers Watson and Pensions & Investments have counted up money manager dollars world-wide, once again, and when it comes to size, passive investment products are (almost) the only game in town.
As of the end of 2012 Vanguard, the mutually-owned low fee fund provider, had leapfrogged State Street Global Advisors (home of SPDR exchange traded funds), to sit behind only Blackrock, owner of iShares, and Allianz, home of Pimco.
OK, not exactly breaking news, but what catches the eye is the growth rate for passive assets over the past decade, vs that for the top 500 asset management houses as a whole. From Towers Watson (click to enlarge):
For those counting (or who want to bookmark a list that is always a pain to find) the top 20 asset managers as of the end of 2012, in US dollar terms was as follows:
For the passive big three, Vanguard is actually in third place in passive assets, at $1.24tn, behind State Street at $1.4tn and BlackRock on $2tn.
Pimco, meanwhile, continues to trade on its intellectual bona fides and the active management prowess of Bill Gross and co. While assets in the Total Return Fund have started to slip , of late, it is still worth noting the achievement of Pimco/Allianz in holding onto second place over the last decade.
Here is the top 20 as of the end of 2002:
Broadly speaking, if you haven’t at least doubled assets in the last decade, you aren’t keeping up. But at the same time, brand loyalty tends to decay only very slowly, even for the former Swiss powerhouses. (It’s not just UBS that has slipped, Credit Suisse assets at the end of 2012 were $446bn, according to P&I/Towers Watson, putting it in 39th place globally.)
Who wants to guess what the 2022 list will look like?
(Hint: China Asset Management, is at 189th, with $50bn in AuM).
Related Links: The great diversification bait and switch – FT Alphaville This is where all the money goes – FT Alphaville Billions of dollars wasted on investment advice – FT