Top 400: Passive growth slowing – but still beating active

The growth of passive investment continues to outpace that of active investment at both global and European levels, according to IPE’s latest Top 400 Asset Managers survey.

Passively managed assets of global and European institutional managers grew nearly twice as much as actively managed assets between 2013 and 2018, the latest iteration of the annual survey found. 

IPE’s data shows the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for European institutional passive investments was 14.6% for the period, while actively managed assets grew by 7.8% per year.

Globally, passively managed assets grew almost 18% a year between 2014 and 2018, while actively managed assets grew by 9.2%.

The growth figures are based on a like-for-like sample of 79 European institutional managers directly comparable across the period, managing €3trn of active assets and €963bn of passive assets, according to this year’s survey.

For global managers, IPE used a sample of 93 managers with €14trn of active assets and €5trn of passive assets.

However, IPE’s research also shows that, last year, active managers gained some ground versus passive managers. As of 2017, passively managed assets grew three times faster than actively managed.

This suggested that, while investors kept allocating to passive products or strategies, in 2017 the pace of growth of passive investments slowed down as investors re-allocated to active.

Active investment still vastly outsizes passive investment at both global and European levels.

At the end of 2017, 69% of assets managed by the sample of 79 European institutional managers was run on an active basis, while 68% of assets managed by global firms was run passively. The ratio was stable compared with the previous year.

The winners and losers

The top five biggest managers remained unchanged compared to last year’s survey: BlackRock comfortably retained its status as the world’s biggest asset manager with €5.3trn. Vanguard was second with €4.1trn.

Amundi entered the top 10, running €1.4trn, while Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s year-on-year decline in assets under management – €1.07trn in 2018, versus €1.12trn last year – saw it fall from 10th position to 12th.

The newly merged Aberdeen Standard Investments debuted this year as the 25th biggest asset manager in the Top 400 survey, with €648.5bn. Janus Henderson Investors, another recently merged entity, made its first appearance at 62, with €308.8bn under management.

The full report is available with the June edition of IPE.

Top 400 Asset Managers 2018 (Top 25)

Click here to download the complete Top 400 table

(To buy the Top 400 data, email Emma Morgan-Jones)