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Introduction 2
A Difficult Environment 3
This report combines the survey results, along with our conversations with
senior managers across the industry, to highlight how managers can guide their
firms to produce extraordinary performance, and accelerate ahead of the pack.
A Difficult Environment 3
It is not news to any active participant that the asset management industry has
faced a difficult operating environment for several years, coupled with double-
digit equity market declines. What is news is that, in the face of these chal-
lenges, a minority of leading firms achieved strong profits and/or maintained
significant asset growth while, industrywide, margins and assets fell.
As a whole in 2002, the U.S. asset management industry delivered average prof-
it margins of 25 percent, down 2 percent from the previous year. This reduced
profitability for the industry was caused by average asset declines of 9 percent,
offset in part by average cost reductions of 8 percent (Exhibit 1). However, the
industry’s increasing challenges are separating the winners from the rest of the
pack, creating a dramatic gap with bottom performers. Indeed, while the top
third of all firms had average profit margins of 46 percent, the bottom third aver-
aged only 3 percent. However, it was not only large fixed-income or money mar-
ket firms that excelled. There are firms of all sizes, client segments and asset-
class focuses that delivered outstanding profitability (Exhibit 2).
4
Just as with profits, the gap in asset growth between winners and losers was
also stark. While the top 10 percent grew assets by greater than 10 percent,
fully 20 percent had asset declines in excess of 20 percent. Broken down by
segment, fixed-income firms, on average, clearly grew more than others in
2002. However, there were a number of firms in each segment that delivered
market-leading growth (Exhibit 3).
Looking forward, the challenges of the industry will likely continue to increase the
performance gap, with a minority of firms achieving distinctive growth and prof-
itability, while the majority work hard just to maintain assets and their current
profit margins. Most firms believe that achieving the profitability levels of the late
1990s will be challenging. Therefore, many have lowered their forward-looking
profitability targets (Exhibit 4). However, we believe the future should not be about
lowered expectations. Rather, we feel firms should place an increased focus on
developing the skills and capabilities required to achieve market-leading prof-
itability and growth levels.
5
Keys to Future Growth
and Profitability
6
The 1990s provided an environment in which simply being in the race was good
enough to obtain exceptional performance. In sharp contrast, the current
decade is placing a premium on senior management strategic decision making,
and operational execution. Well-managed firms will continue to distance them-
selves from competitors that rely on market appreciation for revenue growth,
and pay little attention to strategic choices or excellence in execution. We are
already seeing this pattern emerge, after just 2 years of our benchmarking sur-
vey. For instance, many of the firms that were most aggressive in adjusting their
cost structures to declining asset levels not only achieved greater profitability,
but also had smaller declines in assets (Exhibit 5). The most profitable firms
continue to manage core growth and profitability levers more effectively.
successful firms understand that, in the future, organic growth in most U.S.
markets will continue to be modest. As a result, they are focusing on growing
through three alternative levers:
Leverage core strengths. The most successful firms continuously leverage their
core strengths and aggressively extend into new markets and products that will
augment growth and profitability. For example, over the past few years, many
successful institutional firms have focused on the sub-advisory market, achiev-
ing double-digit growth rates. Many of these winners have also launched prod-
ucts that satisfied investors’ current needs, such as high-yield bond funds.
However, careful assessment of new growth opportunities is critical, not only to
drive growth, but also to maintain and enhance profitability, as the evidence
shows that dabbling is a major drag on profits (Exhibit 6).
Improve sales skills to steal share. There is little doubt that institutional and
retail clients are continuing to become more sophisticated, and are demanding
new and improved sales and service capabilities from their asset managers. On
the institutional side, leading firms are discovering ways to provide better serv-
ice across DB and DC plans, by segmenting their servicing and client relation-
8
The most successful asset management firms view these changing client pref-
erences as a real opportunity to distinguish their sales forces, and steal share
from competitors. They are actively transforming their sales forces and prac-
tices for distinctiveness. An important prerequisite to this transformation is
first identifying the underlying drivers of strong or weak sales performance.
And, a critical first step in that process is gaining an understanding of current
sales performance by product, within each client segment (Exhibit 7).
9
Focus on existing asset base to boost retention. Many in the industry have
long believed that investment performance is the only thing that influences
retention. While it is clearly a major driver, our survey reveals that there are
other important levers that can have real impact on reducing outflows. For
example, firms that invest in client servicing also realized substantially lower
outflow levels (Exhibit 8). In addition to investing wisely in client servicing, firms
with strong retention also pay their sales people (at least in part) on net sales
rather than purely gross sales, and have a deliberate retention management
approach tailored to each client segment.
itability, and even higher, is achievable for the best-run firms. The most prof-
itable firms will be those that excel at seven major revenue and cost levers:
Revenue yield and pricing. Average revenue yield for a firm is driven by two pri-
mary factors – product mix and relative pricing levels within those products. In
terms of product mix, those firms with a focus on the higher-yielding asset
classes will naturally achieve higher average revenue yield. However, despite
common perceptions that pricing is dictated by the market, we found there is
substantial variability in realized pricing levels in the same asset class, client
segment, and average mandate size (Exhibit 9).
The reward for pricing excellence is significant. The top one-third of the firms in
our survey, as measured by profitability, had the highest realized pricing yields
in four out of five major asset classes. Small differences in realized pricing have
substantial impact – a pricing advantage of just one to three basis points trans-
lates into a 2 to 7 percent improvement in profit margin. The best firms will
continue to maintain a pricing edge through pricing and discounting discipline,
11
such as requiring CIO or CEO approval for any discounts from the agreed list
price. They will also take creative approaches to unprofitable legacy business-
es, such as moving lower-priced business to commingled vehicles.
Each additional product typically brings increased costs for investment man-
agement, sales & marketing, IT, and operations. The challenge for firms is to
ensure that they have sufficient scale in each product to sustain profitability,
while at the same time building a diversified product line. Those that achieve
diversification and scale at the product level experience more consistent growth
and attractive profit margins. The most successful firms have clear product
management processes, ranging from product development, to processes that
12
Sales and marketing productivity. With sales levels down for most asset man-
agers in both retail and institutional markets, many asset managers still need
14
to determine what is the sustainable size and composition of their sales and
marketing forces. Just as in investment management, the productivity gaps
between average and distinctive performers are high (Exhibit 13). Sales forces
need to be managed for the long term, not dramatically restructured simply
because of short-term product performance or market-related issues. Still,
many firms have substantial room for improvement in sales productivity, with
the cost of sales and marketing for institutional firms varying from 1 to 10 basis
points, and for retail firms varying from 3 to 20 basis points. In the institution-
al market, leading players are optimizing their sales force roles across asset
classes as well as major functions (e.g. specialized roles for client servicing).
Success in retail wholesaling is primarily contingent on skilled external and
internal wholesalers who concentrate on three things: maintaining a few distri-
bution partners, as opposed to covering the waterfront; developing true part-
nerships with the distribution gatekeepers; and smartly targeting the most
productive advisors.
15
organization. The right approach for capturing potential savings in these areas
varies by type of firm. For firms that have grown organically (versus by acquisi-
tion) substantial cost reduction in the overhead functions typically requires a
clean sheet approach, in which the specific activities of each overhead function
are assessed to determine if their value exceeds their costs, and whether they
should be in-sourced or outsourced. For firms that have been built up via merg-
er, there are often substantial savings to be realized by combining duplicative
support activities across managers and business areas.
***
The U.S. asset management industry is maturing, and the competitive intensi-
ty is continuing to rise, leaving no doubt that strong growth and profitability will
be increasingly difficult to capture. However, the best firms are using this as an
opportunity to pull away from the pack, and are accelerating their investments
in managerial talent and capabilities. Now more than ever, we believe there are
real opportunities for senior managers to greatly influence the future of their
firms. Those who combine strategic and operational excellence will be best
positioned to achieve the outstanding returns this industry has to offer.
Appendix 17
SURVEY PARTICIPANTS
David L. Babson & Company Old Mutual – Pilgrim Baxter & Associates
Findings of the
2003 McKinsey/U.S.
Institute Asset
North American Asset Management Practice Management
September 2003
Designed by the New York Design Center Benchmarking Survey
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