Macquarie is took out 50th place in The Pensions & Investments/Towers Watson World 500 research with total assets of US$370 billion as of 31 December 2014.
The next highest Australian asset manager was CBA, with $156 billion and an overall rank of 100.
Macquarie is the fastest mover in the top 50 this year, having moved up from 116 to 50 within five years.
Towers Watson senior investment consultant Dania Zinurova noted that the largest 20 Australian asset managers grew assets under management by five per cent to just over US$1 trillion during 2014.
“While the size of assets under management was broadly flat from 2004 to 2009, we saw growth from 2009 to 2014 in Australia which, to some extent, could be explained by interest from foreign investors in our market, particularly those looking for opportunities in real estate, infrastructure and natural resources as well as relatively stable economic conditions,” Ms Zinurova said
“The size of assets managed for Australian clients (both domestically and globally) was relatively stable between 2010 and 2012 and has been increasing slightly since 2012, an indication perhaps that asset managers continue to diversify their client bases globally and attract more Australian investors.”
The world’s largest money manager is BlackRock with assets under management of US$4.65 trillion, followed by Vanguard and State Street.
