The world’s biggest assets managers’ assets under management reached $139.9 trillion at the end of 2024, a 9.4% year-over-year increase, Thinking Ahead Institute, an advisory, broking and solutions company, reported last week.
The asset management industry’s total assets are now back above the record set in 2021, the report said. North American managers largely drove this recovery, registering the fastest growth, up 13% year on year and accounting for $88.2 trillion, or 63% of total assets among the top 500 firms.
Japan’s asset managers recorded a 9.5% drop in their assets under management in 2024, highlighting regional disparities in economic and investment performance.
Current growth rates indicate that the United Kingdom, which was the second largest asset management market in 2019, will likely fall to fourth place in the next five years, behind France and Canada, according to the report.
Strategically, the industry is continuing to undergo a significant shift to passive investment strategies. The report said these now account for 39% of total assets under management, up by 6.1% from 2023. For their part, actively managed assets account for 61%, down by 3.6% year over year.
The 2024 figures show that the top 20 asset managers further consolidated their influence, and now control 47% of total AUM, up from 45.5% in 2023. Their combined assets rose to $65.8 trillion, with 15 U.S.-based firms representing 83.9% of this segment.
Private-market specialists have risen rapidly, their asset growth now outpacing that of traditional managers, the report said. For example, Brookfield’s AUM grew from $240 billion in 2017 to $1.1 trillion in 2024.
This 20% annualized increase over eight years pushed the firm up 46 places in the rankings, driven by investor demand for private credit, infrastructure and real estate strategies.
See the gallery for the world’s 20 largest asset managers, as reported by the Thinking Ahead Institute.
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