EUROPE - There has been major changes at the top among Europe’s asset mangers, according to the Investment & Pension Europe survey of the top 400 players in the business, who between them handle some euro 22.6 trillion in assets. This figure is down from the euro 24 trillion recorded in last year’s survey.

German/US giant Allianz Dresdner Asset Management keeps its place at the head of the ranking with Euro 1,048 billion in assets, with Fidelity in second place, but last year’s third placed manager Barclay’s Global Investors slipped to fifth and fellow indexer Vanguard dropping two place to seventh slot.

State Street Global Advisors bucked this trend and saw its position improve from fourth to third place, as did Deutsche Asset Management which moved up the table smartly to fourth from seventh spot. JP Morgan Fleming Asset Management slipped down to ninth from sixth, while Merrill Lynch dropped out of the top ten down to number 11. Capital International remained unmoved at number eight.

The supplement covers the views of leading asset managers about the issues that are causing them most concern. The state of the equity markets and their knock-on effects are high among their pre-occupations.

One outcome is that active manager have never been under such pressure to deliver as in the current conditions. Hence the interest in alternative, absolute return and other approaches.
There are worries too that the whole asset manager business model is under threat or at least up for redesign.

These figures are taken from European Asset Management Leaders 2003, a supplement with the June issue of IPE, published this week, which gives a complete listing of the 400 asset managers covered ranked by total worldwide assets. In addition there are in depth listings of these managers, giving a breakdown of their institutional assets by client type as well as asset class.

Also included are contact points and the key executives.