SSGA dominates ESG investing market: Rainmaker

State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) continues to dominate the ESG and ethical investment market, according to Rainmaker Information, with a nearly 40% holding.

The latest Institutional Roundup report shows SSGA commands 37.9% of the market with $168.3 billion in ethical and socially responsible investments at the end of 2024.

BlackRock comes second with a 14% market share and $62.1 billion, while Magellan Asset Management has $24.2 billion and a 5.4% market share.

ISPT - which is now part of IFM Investors - has $20.9 billion with 4.7% slice and Metrics Credit Partners comes in fifth place with $18 billion in assets.

Rounding up the top 10 ESG managers were PIMCO, AQR, Australian Ethical Investment, J.P. Morgan Asset Management and Plato Investment Management.

Rainmaker assessed managers whose portfolios use ESG, ethical or SRI screens, either positive or negative, constructed around criteria including ethical, environmental, governance or other socially responsible factors.

Among the biggest Australian-owned fund managers, Macquarie Asset Management takes the lead with a 14.7% market share encompassing $294.6 billion in assets. IFM Investors ($146.6bn), Challenger ($131.4bn) and Pinnacle Investment Management ($110.6bn) are also some of the biggest that have a majority Australian-domiciled ownership.

The research also found that ESG investing is one of the fastest-growing asset classes at 20.4%, along with the asset classes of international equities (31.4%), Australian equities (14.9%) and direct property (8.1%).

"Overall, the asset classes had mixed growth in the 12 months to December 2024, as equities and property FUM increased 22.9% and 4.1% respectively while fixed interest and cash fell 6.1% and 6.8%," the report said.