Global assets under management to exceed $100 trillion by 2020 with CAGR of 6%: PwC report

DUBAI: Global assets under management (AUM) will increase to around $101.7 trillion by 2020, from a total of $63.9 trillion in 2012, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 6 per cent, research firm PwC has said.

The report titled 'Asset Management 2020: A brave new world' also finds that 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 (AM) industry.

However, the majority of assets will still be concentrated in the US and Europe.

PwC said that AUM in the Middle East and Africa will rise to $1.5 trillion by 2020, from a total of $0.6 trillion in 2012. This represents a CAGR of nearly 12 per cent.

AUM growth in the Middle East will be mainly driven by positive economic outlook, family businesses and etrepreneurship and the population demographics, the report said.

Globally, PwC predicts pension fund assets will grow by 6.6 per cent a year to reach $56.5 trillion by 2020 from a total of $33.9 trillion in 2012. Mass affluent (those with wealth between $100,000 and $1 million) clients and high-net-worth-individuals (wealth of $1 million or more) in SAAAME regions are key drivers of growth.

Bhavin Shah, Middle East based Asset Management expert, at PwC, said that the response to the gamechangers identified will require considerable thought in order to create great strategy.