BlackRock stays top of insurance asset manager rankings

BlackRock remains top by a long way in the manager rankings for outsourced insurance company assets, published in the 2015 edition of The Insurance Investment Outsourcing Report (IIOR).

Its lead is now $45bn over second-placed Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management (Deutsche AWM).

Deutsche AWM in turn is still more than $80bn ahead of third placed Goldman Sachs Asset Management (see table).

The five strongest percentage performances among the top 20 managers in the IIOR global rankings were delivered by J P Morgan Asset Management (assets under management up 29% to $78bn), Goldman Sachs A M (up 22% to $112bn), Guggenheim Investments (up 19% to $101bn), BlackRock (up 15% to $240bn) and Prime Advisors (up 14% to $12bn).

IIOR focuses exclusively on insurer general account assets — widely regarded as the key benchmark for external insurance investment managers. Separate account, or sub-advised, assets are not included.

IIOR's asset size rankings comprise three categories: global, US-domiciled, and ex-US domiciled. Altogether, 38 asset managers contributed to the 2015 IIOR, reporting a grand total of $1.4trn in non-affiliated general account assets at year-end 2014, an 8.6% increase.

Other notable performances in the top 20 rankings, which account for 97% of IIOR's non-affiliated GA assets total, included: Wellington (up 13% to 96bn), Conning (up 13% to $90bn), GR-NEAM (up 11% to $68bn) and Western Asset (up 10.5% to $54bn).

In the rankings for ex-US domiciled non-affiliated general account insurance assets, BlackRock and Deutsche AWM command a huge lead over the rest ($100bn plus versus $50bn downwards). J P Morgan A M ranks third on $50.78bn with Pimco, after all the travails of the past year, still in fourth place, marginally behind on $50.37bn.

Newcomers to the 38-participant report are: Capital Innovations, Eagle Point Credit Management, Fifth Street Asset Management and Rainier Investment Management.

Participants in 2014 not reporting in the 2015 edition are: BNY Mellon, Capital Group, Cutwater (now part of BNY Mellon), Invesco and Neuberger Berman.

The report (price $995.00, but free of charge to survey participants and insurance companies) was produced by:

Stewart Foley www.insuranceaum.com

David Holmes www.assetoutsourcingexchange.com and

Alex McCallum www.insureram.com.

Top 10 Rankings

Insurance general account assets under management

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