This issue marks the 47th year Pensions & Investments has profiled the largest managers of U.S. institutional tax-exempt assets.
Some 505 investment management firms responded to an online questionnaire for this annual special report. This year, subsidiary managers could be listed as part of the parent company profile rather than being counted as additional managers.
All money management firms are allowed to respond to the survey. To qualify for inclusion in the database, however, the firm must manage assets for U.S. institutional tax-exempt clients such as qualified retirement plans, endowments or foundations and answer the minimum required questions.
The report contains detailed information on the worldwide assets of the qualified respondents, including asset mix, insurance company, sovereign wealth fund or central bank client assets and a regional breakout of clients.
Within the U.S. institutional tax-exempt universe, P&I further breaks down the data into asset classes and, then, into investment style.
As part of the overview story this year, P&I reached out to the largest managers and used public information for updated March 31 worldwide assets under management to reflect a more accurate picture in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic that has dominated market movements in 2020.
This year, P&I added several new questions, expanded the dataset around ESG and liability-driven investing, and included internal cybersecurity personnel as part of the question on the number of employees. New questions broke out assets managed in risk-parity strategies and direct lending for U.S. institutional tax-exempt assets managed internally, and a series of questions was added around pooled plan providers under the recently passed SECURE Act. P&I expanded its questions around environmental, social and governance investing to include internally managed U.S. defined contribution assets managed under ESG principles and U.S. institutional tax-exempt assets managed internally. Lastly, the LDI question for worldwide AUM now includes a question on the amount managed specifically for retirement plans.
All qualified firms are included for the charts and tables that are published, but only the largest 50 firms — ranked by worldwide institutional assets — are profiled in print.
Full profiles of all ranked money managers and complete listings by asset class and investment strategy can be found in P&I Research Center at pionline.com/researchcenter. The online rankings are interactive and are searchable by asset class, investment strategy, region and clients.
Research Center access is free to plan executives. Money managers, consultants and other service providers have access by subscription.
P&I targeted more than 900 banks, trust companies, insurance companies and independent investment management firms in North America and abroad. The data contained in the stories, profiles, charts and tables in this issue and in the Research Center were developed by P&I staff from the firms' answers to the detailed, online questionnaire and through follow-up emails and phone calls.
All information, except where noted, is as of Dec. 31.
Special reports derived from this information will be published throughout the year. An online special report focusing on investment outsourcing will be published June 29, and managers of defined contribution assets will be highlighted July 27. An in-depth report on real estate managers will appear in the Oct. 5 issue. Data from this special report also will be used in a ranking of the largest managers in the world, done in conjunction with Willis Towers Watson PLC's Thinking Ahead Institute, to be published Oct. 19.
All data in this special report are ©2020 Crain Communications Inc. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.
