International investors are pouring money into the hands of Asian money managers, hoping to benefit from the region’s economic dynamism at a time of global uncertainty, according to Institutional Investor’s annual survey of the area’s leading fund managers.
Assets under management of the Asia 100, Institutional Investor’s ranking of the region’s biggest money managers, shot up 16.5 percent in 2009, to $11.3 trillion.
The biggest beneficiaries of the recent trend are large Western asset managers, which have seen their exposure to Asian markets rise sharply. BlackRock, the New York–based firm that is now the world’s largest fund manager, vaults to first place from tenth among international firms, with Asian assets of $422 billion at the end of 2009, up from $68.8 billion a year earlier. In 2009 Blackrock acquired Barclays Global Investors, which ranked as the largest international fund manager in last year’s Asia 100. BlackRock’s gains reflect more than just M&A, though; its Asian assets were up 25.1 percent from the combined totals of BGI and BlackRock in 2008.
State Street Global Advisors, the second-
How We Compiled the Rankings Institutional Investor’s 16th annual ranking of Asia’s biggest institutional investors was compiled from a variety of sources, including questionnaires filled out by the institutions themselves, company Web sites and annual reports, and regulatory agencies. II researchers refined this data through follow-up faxes, e-mails and telephone calls. When official data were unavailable, we obtained figures from actuaries, brokerages and consulting firms. Estimates are footnoted where used. All data are as of December 31, 2009, for all countries except India, Japan and South Korea, for which data are as of March 31, 2010.
Senior Editor Jane B. Kenney led the project, with the assistance of Contributing Editor Donald Kirk in South Korea and Contributor Niraj Bhatt in India, as well as Researchers Carol To in Hong Kong and Katsuko Usami in Japan.