Macquarie outpaces rivals with $583b AUM

Australian asset managers have seen an increase in market share globally over the past decade with Macquarie ranked as the country’s largest asset manager.  

Research from the Thinking Ahead Institute found assets at the world’s 500 largest asset managers had exceeded US$100 trillion ($141.46 trillion) for the first time. 

In Australia, global market share had risen from 0.92% in 2009 to 1.55% in 2019. 

The five largest players in Australia were Macquarie Group, IFM Investors, Colonial First State, AMP Capital and NAB Asset Management. 

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However, Macquarie Group was significantly larger than its nearest rival with US$412 billion compared to US$163 billion for IFM Investors. Overall, Macquarie was the 60th-largest asset manager in the world. 

These five firms were the only ones to have more than US$100 billion in assets under management followed by Pendal Group which had US$70 billion. 

Globally, BlackRock remained the world’s largest asset manager with US$7.4 trillion in assets followed by passive manager Vanguard which had US$6.1 trillion.  

The research found passively managed assets grew from US$4.9 trillion in 2015 to US$7.9 trillion in 2019 thanks to the wider availability of products.  

Roger Urwin, co-founder of the Thinking Ahead Institute, said: “The investment industry has always been dynamic, but the pace of change is speeding up, manifested notably through consolidation. In addition, rapidly advancing technology is changing the shape of mandates and producing products that require less governance and are more streamlined.  

This has led to the growth of passive and index tracking, factor-based strategies and solutions. Private markets have also continued a significant growth trend in the last decade, during which investors have sought higher returns involving higher risk.”