TOP FUND MANAGERS IN EUROPE
Amundi
tops the
A-list
Amundi tops the A-list of firms measured by European AUM – but BlackRock is admittedly conspicuous by its absence,
write Luke Beacon and Nick Fitzpatrick
For all that European asset managers may feel out-competed by US firms on the global stage, at least they rank supreme in Europe, which is probably just how it should be. The European Top 50 – Funds Europe’s ranking of the 50 largest asset managers by European assets under management (AUM) – shows that 95% of the Top 50’s AUM resides with European natives.
Their AUM amounts to €12,678 billion out of a total AUM of €13,385 billion for the entire Top 50. Some €707 billion is attributed to managers from the rest of the world – and €472 billion is specifically attributed to firms based in the US. (In truth, ‘rest of world’ is overwhelmingly the US with the addition of Bermuda-based Fidelity International).
Average European AUM for firms in the Top 50 is €273 billion. Some 17 of the European Top 50 (34%) have a European AUM of over €300 billion.
EU versus non-EU European firms
First, we’ll compare European firms based in the EU with European firms based in non-EU countries, such as the UK and Switzerland.
Of the €12.7 trillion AUM shared among native European firms, those firms that are specifically in the EU have a considerably higher total.
Some €7,914 billion belongs to them and compares with the €4,764 billion managed by European firms not based in the EU.
The reason for this EU/non-EU divide could partly be due to managers in places like the UK and Switzerland choosing to focus more heavily on attracting global business rather than European clients (see tables 4 and 5). European firms that are not based in the EU have a notably higher non-European AUM than EU firms: €3,750 billion vs €2,191 billion. However, in Switzerland’s case this is mainly driven by UBS.
EU firms have a higher average European AUM than European non-EU firms (€344 billion vs €265 billion), while US firms perform a long way behind these two groups (€67 billion).
The most represented country in the European Top 50 is the UK (12 firms, 24% of all firms), followed by the US (eight firms, 16%), France (six firms, 12%) and Germany and Switzerland (both with five firms, 10%) (see table 6). The high placement of the US likely reflects the vigour with which US asset managers attack Europe, and this is even without BlackRock, the firm conspicuous by its absence and which did not provide European figures for this survey.
Anglo-French dominance
France and the UK lead in terms of having the highest levels of total European AUM. Both have €3,485 billion, which is 26% each of the whole European Top 50 AUM (and, combined, 52% of all European AUM in the Top 50).
Germany is third (€2,053 billion, 15%), while Switzerland (€1,176 billion, 9%) and Italy (€1,117 billion, 8%) make up the rest of the top 5. The US is a very distant 6th place (€472 billion, 4%).
In terms of average European AUM, French firms have the higher amount (€581 billion), followed at a distance by Germany (€411 billion). Then come Italy (€372 billion), the UK (€290 billion), and Switzerland (€235 billion).
The French figure is highly influenced by Amundi, which is the largest Top 50 firm in our ranking and the only firm to have over €1 trillion in European AUM. Alone, Amundi represents 12% of total European AUM.
Alongside Amundi, the other large French firms such as Axa Investment Managers, Natixis Investment Management (including the Ostrum portion of AUM) and BNP Paribas Asset Management (currently acquiring Axa IM), also have a big impact on the average. These four firms alone make up 26% of total European AUM and are all in the top 10.
Aside from Ostrum, one other French firm is in the top 50 – the independent asset manager Carmignac, with €33 billion in AUM. French firms are therefore very skewed towards the upper area of the Top 50 rankings – and so, too, are German firms. Four of the five German firms in our ranking are among the top 15 largest managers by European AUM.
There are only three Italian firms in the Top 50, but all have a European AUM of over €200 billion and all are in the top half of the European Top 50.
The biggest US-based firm is BNY – but this is based only on Insight Investment and Newton Investment Management, the two asset managers of BNY that responded to our survey and which have a combined AUM of €634 billion. Both are based in the UK.
Franklin Templeton (€141 billion), Russell Investments (€65 billion) Invesco (€64 billion) and Neuberger Berman (€59 billion) make up the rest of the US top five.
UK’s high-performing firms
The UK has 12 firms in the Top 50 – the highest number. High-performing firms like Aviva Investors, Baillie Gifford, HSBC Asset Management, Insight Investment, Legal & General Investment Management and Schroders, together represent 22% of the total European AUM of the Top 50. Yet the UK has as many firms in the bottom half of the Top 50 as it does in the top half, leading to a more even distribution of firms and a lower overall average AUM than several other countries.
Switzerland has five firms in the Top 50, although none of these currently make the Top 10 (UBS comes in at 11th but keep in mind that Credit Suisse’s European AUM is not included in UBS AM’s European figure). Three of the other four Swiss firms are clustered in the middle-upper tiers of the Top 50 (positions 19-28), leading to a lower overall average AUM than the above-mentioned countries that have a higher proportion of firms in the upper region of the Top 50.
And BlackRock?
The largest asset manager in the world did not provide us with its European data. However, in the firm’s Q4 results, the firm revealed at had almost $1 trillion of assets in ETFs in Europe through its iShares brand.
We don’t know how much active would add to this, but at the global level, the firm’s ETF/index business is much larger that its active business – $7,760 billion versus $2,870 billion.
Europe AUM vs rest of world
Finally, we consider the split between AUM in Europe and outside of Europe for the Top 50 (table 14).
Natixis is the only top 10 firm with more AUM outside of Europe than inside (51% outside). Aside from Natixis, all firms in the top 10 with non-European AUM have between roughly 70-80% of their AUM in Europe, and 20-30% of their AUM outside.
BNP Paribas and Union Investment are the only firms in the top 10 to have all of their AUM in Europe.
As you might expect, many firms with their largest proportion of AUM outside of Europe are American (and Invesco comes out top at 96% outside of Europe). But there are 10 European firms (6 of which are UK based) that have more AUM outside of Europe than inside.
These firms include: Barings (UK) – 84% outside of Europe; Aberdeen (UK) – 81%; Janus Henderson (UK) – 71%.
Switzerland’s UBS comes in with 71% outside of Europe, though its European figures exclude Credit Suisse. UBS is followed by Newton (UK) – 61%; Fidelity (Bermuda) – 58%; M&G (UK) – 53%; BBVA (Spain) – 52%; Schroders (UK) 52% and Natixis (France) – 51%.
Some 17 firms have no AUM outside of Europe and 20 have less than 5% outside of Europe.
Country basis
The US figure for AUM outside of Europe is 91%. On a country basis, the US is followed by Switzerland (52% – although this is purely driven by UBS and all other Swiss firms have the majority of their AUM in Europe).
Then come Spain (48% – but this is only 2 firms) and the UK (42%).
France follows, with 30% outside of Europe, then Germany at 15% and Italy at 12%.
Non-EU European firms have 44% of their AUM outside of Europe – double the proportion of EU firms (22%).