UK – Legal & General Investment Management is now the largest manager of pension fund assets in the UK, with 60.4 billion pounds (87 billion euros) under management, according to Hymans Robertson.

Barclays Global Investors was second with 45.5 billion pounds in pension assets and Merrill Lynch Investment Managers third with 32.4 billion pounds.

Fourth was Schroder at 31.9 billion pounds and in fifth place was Deutsche Asset Management at 31.2 billion pounds. Hymans said the top five managers accounted for 40% of total pension assets, down from 50% a decade earlier.

The largest overall fund manager was BGI, with 116.6 billion pounds. LGIM is second overall with 114 billion pounds while Prudential M&G was third with 110.3 billion pounds.

Consultancy firm Hymans said LGIM was one of the few large managers to avoid a fall in UK assets under management in 2002, with total assets remaining flat at 114 billion pounds.

It said both MLIM and Schroder saw their UK pension fund assets under management fall by more than 20% in 2002, while UBS fell 15%. It said most of the fall was due to the reduced value and number of equity mandates.

Total institutional pension assets of the managers in its “top 50” survey of UK managers saw their assets fall by 20% in 2002, to around 500 billion pounds.

“Of this, 80% was managed for corporate pension schemes and 20% was managed for public sector/local authority funds,” Hymans said.
Hymans said 2002 also saw the growth of specialist managers such as and multi-managers.

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