Asia-Pac institutions have $32.8 trillion in assets

The 300 largest institutional investors in Asia, Japan and Australia have a combined AUM of $32.8 trillion, according to the July edition of AsianInvestor magazine.

The magazine will publish the results of its survey of these institutions’ investment trends later this autumn.

Jame DiBiasio, editor of AsianInvestor, says the size of the asset pool continues to grow. “Our annual ranking should serve as a modest corrective to the gloom in the funds industry. It may be true that macro conditions have kept many investors on the sidelines. But that’s a lot of money to leave in bank deposits.”

He adds that the small size of most Asian capital markets relative to the assets under management at the bigger institutions will require them to diversify abroad in greater quantities.

The ranking, called the AI300, has added names from Japan and Australia for the first time. This allows readers to map the entire region’s institutional community, to get an understanding of where the assets truly lie.

Last year's AI200 was focused just on names from Asia ex-Japan. Within that subset, the AUM figures grew, from $15.6 trillion to $18.1 trillion. Some of that is due to better visibility of accounts at banks and insurance companies, which forced AsianInvestor to revalue some of its tallies. Some is due to asset growth.

Japan’s 50 biggest names add a further $13.1 trillion to the mix, although the 26 entries from China have nearly $11 trillion. The next biggest market in AUM terms is South Korea, at around $2 trillion.

Commercial banks comprise the largest category of institutions (counting only the cash and securities on their balance sheets, not loans or other assets), followed by central banks and insurance companies.

The ranking also includes pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and official institutions.

The full results of the rankings are available in the July edition of AsianInvestor magazine. Excel versions of the rankings, plus historical data, are available to full-package subscribers. For details, please email Richard Santoro or call him on +852 3175 1980.