Surge in assets activity
25/06/2008
Total assets actively managed by global wealth managers reached $17.4 trillion in 2007, 11.6% up on 2006, according the Scorpio Partnership’s annual private banking benchmark survey.
The percentage rise is slightly down on the 13.8% increase achieved in 2006.
Scorpio said this year’s analysis shows that close correlation between the industry’s assets under management growth performance and the world equity market performance appears to have de-linked in 2007.
For the last five years the two have moved in tandem, but the world’s wealth managers outperformed the MSCI World Index by 12% in US dollar terms in 2007, said the survey.
The Scorpio survey also revealed that three banks top $1 trillion in assets while a further 24 institutions now manage over $100 billion in private client funds.
All three trillionaires — UBS, Citi and Merrill Lynch, belong to integrated banking groups, but two of them, UBS and Merrill, recorded disappointing asset growth, below the base currency median of 11.6%, suggesting that they clearly had suffered some impact from the sub-prime fallout, the survey said.
