With the end of 2004 mere days away, many are likely tallying successes and failures of the past year. At least two asset managers are probably chalking up their wins, if the latest DC rankings are an indication. According to year-end 2003 Pensions & Investments rankings, both T. Rowe Price and PIMCO have used the past two years to shoot up in the defined contribution asset manager tables. T. Rowe Price moved up 11 slots to eighth largest DC asset manager, while PIMCO jumped nine slots.

Other than T. Rowe's ascendancy into number eight, there was not much movement in the top ten. The second tier saw more movement across the past two years: in slots 11 to 25, PIMCO was the biggest winner, jumping from 23rd to 14th and Janus was the biggest loser, dropping from 14th to 23rd.

Prudential Financial also lost ground, going from 18th largest DC asset manager in 2002 to 25th largest manager in 2004. MassMutual Financial, Mellon Financial and MetLife all made headway in the rankings, jumping up 7, 6 and 4 spots, respectively.

So what is T. Rowe Price doing right? Heidi Walsh, head of marketing at T. Rowe Price, attributed the firm's success to new business wins: "the market has opened up in the past...year and a half...more sponsors are out looking for providers."

In the past two years, the firm hasn't so much changed its sales strategy but built out its suite of products and services, Walsh said. Within the past two years, T. Rowe began offering a service that bundles conventional plan features such as automatic enrollment and automatic contribution increases in one package to sponsors.

Sponsors also reacted favorably to the firm's asset allocation funds: "[o]ur retirement date funds has been one of the most successful product launches, in the DC services side, that we've ever had," Walsh added.

Ocean's 25
Top DC Asset Managers	2004 rank	2002 rank	Change in rank
Fidelity Investments	1	1	-
TIAA-CREF	2	2	-
Vanguard Group	3	4	1
State Street Global	4	3	(1)
Capital Research	5	6	1
Barclays Global	6	5	(1)
ING	7	8	1
T. Rowe Price	8	19	11
INVESCO	9	11	2
AIG Global Investment	10	7	(3)
American Express	11	9	(2)
Putnam Investments	12	10	(2)
Diversified Investments	13	16	3
PIMCO	14	23	9
Principal Global Investors	15	12	(3)
MetLife	16	20	4
MassMutual Financial	17	24	7
Merrill Lynch	18	17	(1)
Deutsche Asset Management~	19	13	(6)
Northern Trust Global	20	22	2
Nationwide Financial	21	15	(6)
CIGNA Retirement	22	21	(1)
Janus Capital Group	23	14	(9)
Mellon Financial*	24	30	6
Prudential Financial	25	18	(7)
Source: Pensions & Investments
Notes: (*) In 2002, Dreyfus; (~) In 2002, Scudder Investments

 

Correction: Prudential Financial also lost ground, going from 18th largest DC asset manager in 2002 to 25th largest manager in 2004.

The data cited is from the December 27, 2004 and December 23, 2002 issues of Pensions & Investments.

Stay ahead of the news ... Sign up for our email alerts now
CLICK HERE