The top fund firms by Asia-Pacific AUM: 1-25

Despite growing competition and regulatory headwinds in Asia, a good proportion of the big global fund houses posted healthy regional assets under management increases last year, as can be seen from our list of the top 25 managers by Asia-Pacific AUM.

They include the likes of Amundi, BlackRock, BNY Mellon Investment Management, Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management and State Street Global Advisors.

Most of the 15%-odd growth in BNY IM’s regional assets was down to flows into its fixed income strategies, said Alan Harden, Asia-Pacific CEO. The group also saw an 8% increase in global AUM for its passive products arm, Mellon Capital, with a significant chunk coming from Asian institutions, he told AsianInvestor, declining to go into more detail.

BNY Mellon IM benefited strongly from Japan flows last year, which Harden said were up on those in 2013. And Japanese institutions are getting more specific about their allocations, he added, which suits his firm’s multi-specialist-boutique set-up.

In fact, the firm is looking to acquire more alternatives and equities expertise to add to its 14-strong range of boutiques covering traditional and alternative assets.

One area BNY Mellon IM is not focusing on now is retail in Asia, which it sees as too costly and burdensome from a regulatory perspective – hence its withdrawal from the market last year.

And it is unlikely to be the only international firm that takes such a decision. “Regulation is the biggest challenge for the asset management industry in Asia now,” Harden said.

However, last October the firm launched a private bank platform, BNY Mellon Wealth Management, as reported. While fund managers’ biggest nominal revenues come from institutional clients right now, said Harden, that may change in the coming three or four years. He suggested that higher nominal revenues are likely to come from the private wealth business in future.

Other managers are also alert to the opportunities in the high-net-worth segment, judging by the trend towards boosting the sales focus on private  banks. BlackRock and Goldman Sachs Asset Management are among those to have made such moves last year.

But there are firms that are still seeing new business growth on the institutional side – one being Eastspring Investments, the Asian fund management business of UK insurer Prudential.

It posted well-above-trend Asia-Pacific AUM growth of 21.64% year-on-year. Close to half of this was from third-party inflows (as opposed to money run for Prudential). Roughly 75% of this new money came from the retail and private bank segments, while 25% was from institutions. This represented a pick-up in business from institutions for Eastspring, said deputy chief executive Michele Bang.

*A full feature and more analysis from our annual survey appears in the latest (February) issue of AsianInvestor magazine. Click here for the ranking for numbers 26-50, here for 51-75 and here for 76-100.