According to Hugh Dougherty, Watson Wyatt’s Australian head of manager research, many funds are habitually looking at alternative ways of accessing cheap beta. Passively managed assets grew by 16 per cent in 2007, and a cumulative 19 per cent a year since 1996. In the overall rankings, Barclays Global Investors overtook State Street Global Advisors as the world’s largest manager, with US$2.078 trillion as at December last. SSgA had US$1.979 trillion at the time, followed by Allianz with US$1.957 trillion.