The UK property funds industry edged back towards its pre-crisis high in the 12 months to 30 June, with a total of £177.6bn of assets under management, according to exclusive data from Property Funds Research.
This represents a 9.1% increase on last year’s figure, and puts total UK AUM at 17.7% below 2008’s £216bn peak.
Despite a series of large mergers in the fund management world, including Aberdeen Asset Management’s acquisition of SWIP and Henderson Global Investors’ partnership with TIAA-CREF, the top 10 fund managers remained relatively unchanged from last year.
The only new manager to break into the top 10 was
Aberdeen, rising from 14th to 6th place after its SWIP buy boosted AUM by £5.8bn. This is because the flurry of corporate activity has been driven mainly by global growth ambitions rather than plans to expand UK AUM.
Aviva Investors topped the rankings for the 11th consecutive year, although AUM fell by £759m – or 3.9% – to £18.4bn. Aviva has been on “sell-down” mode on a number of funds of the 2005-06 vintage that are nearing the end of their life, said Ben Stirling, managing director of European real estate.
