Global assets under management (AuM) will rise to around USD101.7trn by 2020 from a 2012 total of USD63.9trn, says a PwC report.
This represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly six per cent.
According to Asset Management 2020: A Brave New World, the majority of AuM will still be concentrated in North America in 2020 and will rise to USD49.4trn in 2020, up from USD33.2trn in 2012, representing a CAGR of 5.1 per cent.
However, assets under management in the SAAAME (South America, Asia, Africa, Middle East) economies are set to grow faster than in the developed world in the years leading up to 2020, creating new pools of assets that can potentially be tapped by the asset management industry. Clients in SAAAME regions will more than double their wealth between 2012 and 2020.
"The results show that while North America will continue to be an asset management powerhouse, some of the emerging markets are quickly making inroads," says Raj Kothari, national asset management leader and GTA managing partner at PwC. "This will create new opportunities for asset managers globally, as their client bases and sources of asset pools expand."
In 2012, the asset management industry managed 36.5 per cent of assets held by pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, mass affluent and high-net-worth-individuals. If the AM industry is successful in making further inroads in this area, and is able to increase their share of managed assets by 10 per cent to a level of 46.5 per cent, this would in turn represent USD130trn in global AuM.
The report also suggests that pension fund assets will be a considerable driver of growth, growing by 6.6 per cent a year to reach USD56.5trn by 2020 (30.1trn in the North America). Furthermore, the size of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) is rising fast and their presence in international capital markets is becoming more prominent. SWFs' AuM now sit above USD5trn and are predicted to surge to nearly USD9trn by 2020. SWFs based in the Middle East and Africa will grow the fastest, with Asia Pacific also seeing a rapid rise in SWF assets.
