Asia's Top Money Managers
When you’re on a roll, even bad news doesn’t seem to hurt. Just ask an Asian fund manager. Most of the region’s stock markets were hit by a broader emerging-markets sell-off in May and June. Rising U.S. interest rates and slower growth are clouding the economic outlook. Chinese authorities are increasingly voicing worries about an overheating economy. Yet investment assets continue to flow into Asia at an impressive pace.
The region is flush with cash, and investors are brimming with confidence. The buoyancy is reflected in the Asia 100, Institutional Investor’s annual ranking of the region’s biggest money managers. Assets under management at these firms climbed 8.3 percent in 2005, to $8.3 trillion, compared with a 4 percent increase the previous year. And fund managers say the trend looks set to continue.
“This year will be a good year, slightly better than last,” predicts Hugh Young, managing director of Aberdeen Asset Management Asia in Singapore. Asia’s economic growth story is still intact, he says, and corporate profits remain buoyant.
How the rankings were compiled Institutional Investor's 12th annual ranking of Asia's largest institutional investors includes banks, insurance companies, pension funds, independent fund managers and firms domiciled in 12 Asian countries, as well as 20 international managers with significant investments in the region, though their assets are not necessarily managed in Asia. Subsidiaries with substantial assets under management have generally been listed separately.
The rankings were compiled from a variety of sources, including questionnaires filled out by the institutions themselves. II refined this data through follow-up faxes, e-mails and telephone calls. Researchers also culled information from annual reports, company Web sites, local regulatory agencies and other public sources. When official data were unavailable, II obtained figures from actuaries, brokerages and consulting firms. Estimates, which are footnoted, account for the remaining numbers. When possible, figures are broken into regional and asset categories.
II seeks to present numbers that are as comparable as possible, given the different levels of disclosure and varying accounting practices in use across Asia. Inevitably, there is double counting of assets in some countries because of the lack of disclosure standards and the variety of sources needed to reach an approximate total for some money managers.
Because of currency conversion and rounding, breakdown figures may not add up to the sum of total assets.