Review of BCG’s Asset Management Survey 2017

We had a chance to take a look at the Boston Consulting Group’s annual asset management survey which landed on our desks last week. Each summer the consultancy takes a fairly deep dive into the industry’s overall state of health and reviews its overall performance, as well as discusses emerging products and competitive trends. A few things we found particularly interesting:

• For the first year since the 2008 financial crisis, revenue earned by asset management firms fell globally in 2016 along with profits. The biggest squeeze in margins come from those ‘in the middle’ i.e. from asset managers without large scale or a niche focus.
• Global assets under management increased by 7 percent to $69 trillion, however most of that growth came from rising markets rather than new inflows which held steady throughout the year.

• One area of growth area that particularly stands out is China, where the asset management industry is still relatively underdeveloped. The country’s assets under management increased 21 percent in 2016, mostly driven by net new inflows. Rising levels of household wealth, along with the development of insurance companies and pension funds, offer the potential for further gains in the coming years. Foreign companies, for whom the barriers to entry to the Chinese market are gradually disappearing, could stand to benefit from this trend.
• Passive strategies were the largest driver of net fund flows in the US, where the industry is dominated by a few large players (the top 10 firms captured almost all of the inflows). This ‘winner takes all’ trend was less pronounced on the active side of things, where the 10 top firms captured 58% of net inflows.
• Despite the faster growth of AuM in passive products, passives’ contribution to managers’ revenue pools “remains small.” Revenues from passive mandates grew from about $6 billion in 2008 to $14 billion in 2016, which only represents 6% of the industry’s global revenues. Even though various forecasts suggest passive investments could overtake active by 2021 (in terms of AuM), revenues will likely only reach around 7% of total revenues during the same period.
• The asset class that has proved to be the most stable during the last few years is alternatives. Even though alternatives only accounted for 15% of AuM in 2016, they made up 42% of total revenues. The next two strongest contributors were active specialties as well as solutions and multi assets.

The survey concludes that growth in the industry is still possible, however only through a combination of M&A, cost management, and crucially, technology innovation.