Edelman Smithfield’s Asset Management Brand Index is a biennial study which provides a brand ranking for the 50 largest global institutional managers and the 40 largest UK wholesale/retail asset managers, based on the views of major investment consultants, IFAs and senior investment media. Respondents are asked to rank these companies against a range of factors, from their awareness levels and uniqueness, through to their corporate culture, investment talent and process, and the quality of their executive management.
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Asset management brands are recovering.
Institutional brand scores rose to 67.84 from 64.53 two years ago, their highest level since the Index began. Wholesale also improved, rising to 69.28 from 67.72, its best result since 2017.
Institutional buyers favour specialists, while wholesale allocators favour scale.
Five of the top ten institutional managers are asset-class specialists, especially in fixed income, private markets and real assets. In wholesale, the top ten is dominated by large, broad-platform managers with strong solutions-style offerings.
Distinctiveness is improving in institutional, but remains hard in wholesale.
Institutional “uniqueness” scores rose 2.49 points, from 64.75 to 67.24, while brand-score dispersion widened from 5.74 to 7.18, suggesting firms are standing apart more clearly. In wholesale, uniqueness slipped slightly from 68.07 to 67.53, and more than half of firms sit in the 'average' band.
Management teams remain an underused brand asset.
Executive management quality continues to lag overall brand scores in both channels, with the lowest score dispersion of any category. In wholesale, no firm reaches the “strong” bracket for executive management, while institutional has only one.
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