Colonial First State retained its position as Australia's largest investment manager in the September quarter but suffered a second consecutive drop of 3.2 per cent in funds under management according to InvestorSupermarket's latest market wrap.
Colonial dropped $1.1 billion from the March quarter and 2.1 per cent from June to have $95 billion in unconsolidated funds under management at the end of September 2006. Its global equities fell sharply by 48 per cent or $6 billion.
Legg Mason Asset Management saw the largest decrease with unconsolidated FUM falling $6.9 billion or 63.8 per cent due to the branching out of affiliate company Western Asset Management.
Investor Supermarket's market wrap survey of 135 investment managers confirms positive gains in the domestic share market are driving overall growth in FUM which bolstered a three per cent rise in the September quarter to $1.44 trillion.
The sector bounced back from the June quarter, which dropped 1.1 per cent or 15.6 billion due to poor investment markets.
AMP Capital Investors edged closer to Colonial with FUM of $89 billion. In contrast to its competitor, AMP topped the increase in global equities with a 20.1 per cent rise of $3 billion.
Macquarie Bank ranked third with a total FUM of $81.6 billion followed by MLC Investment Managers ($73.4 billion), AXA Australia ($70.9 billion) and State Street Global Advisors, which achieved the largest increase of 6.6 per cent to $62 billion.
AllianceBernstein rose above QIC in the September quarter to rank seventh with total FUM of $54 billion.
AllianceBernstein again topped the list of mandates with a total of 47 awarded in the September quarter followed by Barclays Global Investors (33) and Macquarie Bank (28).
