Around the world, who are the largest asset owners? Generally, the large ones are Pension Funds, Sovereign Wealth Funds, OCIOs (Outsourced Chief Investment Office), University Endowments, Charitable Foundations.
The top 100 Funds/Asset owners have USD 23.4 trillion under management. For quick context, global wealth is ~ USD 454 trillion. And global GDP is USD 96 trillion. Total Global Stock Market Cap is USD 109 trillion. (Quickref/ ballpark).
Following are some notes from this report by the Thinking Ahead Institute.
“The top 3 remain unchanged, with the Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) of Japan retaining its position as the world’s largest asset owner (AUM of USD 1.4 trillion). Norges Bank Investment Management of Norway comes in second (AUM of USD 1.3 trillion) and China Investment Corporation takes the third position (AUM of USD 1.1 trillion)”
Here is a chart showing top 10 pension funds globally with their asset size. The largest is USD 1.4 trillion and ranges upto USD 290 billion.
Here is the list of top 10 Sovereign Wealth Funds. The largest is Norges Bank Investment Management with USD 1.25 trillion asset size, ranging upto USD 276 billion.
Here following is the list of top 10 OCIOs and master trusts globally. The largest is Mercer with USD 338 billion and ranges upto USD 87 billion. To keep this number in contexts for the following discussion on endowments.
Here is the asset allocation mix of top 100 asset owners
Apart from these, a look at the other large asset owners. Here is the list of top university endowments, and charitable foundations. (None of these are in top 100, the largest being smaller than USD 72 billion )
Top Insurance Companies. These are not included in top 100 since they include assets managed by third parties.
The report has a list of top 100 funds.
But separately, here is an interesting chart showing the top endowments. (By visual capitalist)
An endowment fund is the investment arm of nonprofit institutions like universities, charities, and churches. The purpose of the fund is to invest the organization’s assets to fuel future operations and other important projects.
Apart from these institutional asset owners, endowments, foundations, there is another category of asset owners – family offices. The largest family office is Walton Enterprises ($224 billion), Cascade Investment (Bill Gates, $170 billion), Bezos Expedition ($107 billion). A longer list can be found here.