The II 300
America’s Top 300 Money Managers
Like a pair of elephants dancing a pas de deux, two huge indexers change places at the top of Institutional Investor’s annual ranking of America’s biggest money managers: State Street Global Advisors, No. 1 last year, yields the top spot to Barclays Global Investors, which was No. 2 in the 2004 ranking. BGI’s total assets? A formidable $1.36 trillion. Nor is this the only show of passive power in the II 300: Northern Trust Global Investments, the world’s third-biggest indexer, moves into the top ten, at tenth, for the first time, up from 12th last year and 17th in 2001.
To compile this ranking, Institutional Investor surveyed banks, insurance companies, pension funds, independent fund managers and foreign money management firms with registered offices in Europe. European companies and companies headquartered in Europe (for example, HSBC Holdings) were asked to report global assets under management. Non-European companies were asked to report only European-derived assets (invested domestically or internationally) and non-European assets slated for investment in Europe. Senior Associate Editor Tucker Ewing gathered the data from questionnaires completed by the institutions themselves. This information was supported by annual reports, additional reporting and follow-up faxes and telephone calls.
The numbers are as comparable as possible, considering the different accounting practices in Europe. Assets are stated in euros. In some cases, assets at continental European institutions are higher than reported, because their accounting rules require that they value assets at the lower of cost or market value. As a result of currency conversion and rounding, not all columns add up. All information is as of December 31, 2004, unless otherwise noted.
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