Australian funds managers outpaced most of their international counterparts for growth in FUM last year according to the latest Towers Watson survey of the world’s largest 500 firms.

The survey, conducted with ‘Pensions & Investments’ magazine, included 15 Australian managers, with a total FUM of US$567.75 billion, which was up 20 per cent on the previous year. The overall growth in FUM for the world universe grew by 16 per cent.

Martin Goss, senior investment consultant at Towers Watson, said the local firms were helped by their relatively high level of equity management, the outperformance of Aussie equities versus international and the strengthening of the A$ versus the greenback.

The top 15 Australian managers as at December 31, with FUM in US$, were:

Macquarie Bank Group (111.24 billion)

AMP (84.95 billion)

Colonial First State (80.36 billion)

NAB/MLC (66.79 billion)

QIC (55.82 billion)

Westpac/BT (30.27 billion)

Perpetual (25.88 billion)

Suncorp Metway (20.88 billion)

Challenger Financial (20.44 billion)

Perennial Investment (18.09 billion)

Platinum Asset Management (16.07 billion)

Maple-Brown Abbott (11.66 billion)

Insurance Australia Group (10.30 billion)

Lend Lease (7.50 billion)

Balanced Equities Management (7.49 billion).

BlackRock, with its merger with Barclays Global Investors last year, was a clear number one in the world with US$3.35 trillion in assets, followed by State Street Global Investors with $1.91 trillion, Allianz Group with $1.86 trillion and Fidelity with $1.70 trillion.