Mellon Capital Management has been crowned king of the international equity managers for volume of reported new business wins over the last 12 months.
Propelling Mellon to pole position in FT Mandate’s ranking table was a massive $5bn (e4bn) passive mandate awarded by the Alaska Permanent Fund last August following its dismissal of Deutsche Asset Management from the contract.
More recently, Mellon Capital was the happy recipient of a $250m passive Europe, Australia and Far East (Eafe) mandate from the $7.5bn Idaho Public Employees Retirement System (Ipers) after the US state scheme withdrew the brief from Schroders.
The money was parked in Mellon Capital’s index fund for a temporary period while Ipers sought a replacement manager.
Bank of New York Asset Management (BNY) seized second spot in our ranking table, thanks to bagging a brief to manage the New York City Deferred Compensation Plan’s $2bn S&P500 index option.
The award pushed BNY’s index assets under management over the $50bn mark.
Kurt Zyla, managing director and head of index management at BNY, commented: “Being part of a large organisation is key to winning mandates of this size. We benefit from the bank’s strength as a custodian.”
BNY’s indexing business has seven investment professionals and is supported by staff from the equity trading desk and the custody side.
Mr Zyla said that Steven Pisarkiewicz, head of BNY asset Management, had been supportive of all business lines, but especially indexing since he joined the bank last year.
Dean Weltman, compliance officer at the $5.2bn New York City Deferred Compensation Plan, said BNY had been chosen because it offered the option of a separately management account in addition to cost savings.
Vanguard had previously run the money as a commingled fund.
A single global equities mandate worth Ł1.8bn (e2.7bn) from the Ł19bn Universities Superannuation Scheme in March was enough for Wellington Management Company to claim third place in the rankings.
The brief from the UK’s third largest private sector pension fund followed an investment review and a strategic decision to move away from balanced fund management.
Barclays Global Investors (BGI) claimed fourth spot in our rankings largely on the strength of a e1bn European large cap passive equities mandate from the French fonds de réserve pour les retraites in April.
BGI was one of one of four foreign managers to win briefs from the e16bn French national pension fund scheme which doled out its first e10bn in mandates to a total of 13 investment houses.
In March Abbey National Asset Managers awarded BGI a 25 per cent share of a Ł1.2bn UK equities portfolio as part of a shift to a multi-manager strategy targeting specialists in equities, bonds and alternative investments.
