11 Biggest Fixed Income Managers in the World

This list of biggest fixed income managers in the world that will help you to choose the best-fixed income management firms and funds. As a concept the fixed income allows retirees, and other individuals who want to play safe, to create a reliable income in the years to come.

The fixed income securities usually provide reliable monthly dividends to investors and are perfect for creating an income stream for different categories of people, who are not able to earn money in other more lucrative ways. The inflation is the only thing that can damage this type of dividend stream. Most fixed income investors decide to purchase government, municipality and strong corporate bonds. These securities are ideal for making your portfolio more diverse and securing your future returns.

Choosing a fixed income manager is not an easy task. Many companies offer FI management services, but before you opt for any of them make sure that they are capable of carefully assessing risk levels. While doing this, fixed income managers need to take into consideration all possible risks, including credit, liability, structure and an interest rate. By creating through risk assessments fixed income managers can run a low-risk portfolio that will provide secure returns.

Most big fixed income managers guarantee steady returns. They invest their clients’ funds in high-quality and secure bonds and build well-structured and diverse portfolios. Although managers are primarily providing stand-alone allocation, which works great for clients who are looking for steady returns, they sometimes also use complementary allocation for clients who want to build riskier portfolios.

Most of the data from this field that can be found online are at least several years old. To make our article more accurate, we have used the data from two online sources. The Pension and Investment Research Team helped us to find the companies that are ruling the fixed income securities market and are still managing a huge number of assets.

We hope that the list of the biggest fixed income managers in the world will help you find a reliable fund, achieve secure returns and enjoy a peaceful retirement. But, before you retire, you will have to work for a pretty long time regardless whether you are employed in some private sector, or you have your own business. In addition to this, if you are a pharmacist and you want to start your own business, we think that you will find our list of 9 highest paying countries for pharmacist very helpful.

To make our list of biggest fixed income managers in the world more up-to-date, we have also entered the information that we found on the EFN Events, which lists the five top-performing fixed income managers in the past year, from all over the world. Since the Pension and Investments list doesn’t provide too much information about individual managers, we needed to google every company from the list to find out more information about their assets, benchmarks, and strategies.

11. Legg Mason Inc.

Fixed income assets: $152.8 billion;

Legg Mason is an international financial company. They provide a wide variety of asset management services to clients from all over the world. In addition to regular and fixed income assets, they also deal with liquidity management and hedge funds’ investments. In 2013 the company had more than $152 billion worth of fixed income assets and more than $700 billion in mutual assets, which makes it the 20^th biggest asset management institution in the world. They work with both corporate and individual investors on all six continents. Their headquarters is in Baltimore, Maryland. The company has several subsidiaries, all of whom have formed diverse portfolios and have specialized in one or a few market segments.

10. Vanguard Group Inc.

Fixed income assets: $156.1 billion;

Vanguard Group is managing more than $4 trillion worth of assets. The value of Vanguard’s fixed income assets in 2013 was $156.1 billion. The company is specialized in mutual funds and ETFs, and it is the biggest trader of these securities in the world, after the Black Rock Inc. Apart from brokerage they also offer accounting, financial and trust management services. The company was founded by John C. Bogle, who had also served as a long-time chairman. He is also known as the creator of the first index fund that was available to individual investors. Currently, the Vanguard Group is a mutual company, partially owned by its clients.

9. BNY Mellon Asset Management

Fixed income assets: $166.8 billion;

BNY Mellon Asset Management, that’s next on th elist of biggest fixed income managers in the world is a part of the Bank of New York Mellon that generates 28% of the revenue of this huge financial institution. In 2013 they had been running almost $167 billion in fixed income assets. The Asset Management branch also operates 13 asset management companies, which makes it one of the biggest multi-boutique investors on the world market. Apart from fixed income management they also work with cash, equity and other alternative forms of investments. For the last seven years, the company is being run by CEO Gerald Hassel and the board of 15 other directors.

8. TIAA-CREF

Fixed income assets: $180.9 billion;

Apart from being one of the biggest fixed income managers in the world, TIAA is also one of the leading retirement and financial services provider that works with more than 5 million clients in 50 countries. They manage around $180 billion in fixed income assets and provide other services to employees in medical, science, cultural and government institutions. The company is regularly ranked on the Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 lists, and it is the largest agriculture investor in the United States and in the world. A large part of company’s operations are being done on the non-for-profit basis, which is why all the TIAA profits are shared between the investors.

7. M&G Investments

Fixed income assets: $205.2 billion;

M&G Investments is the biggest company in Europe when it comes to fixed income assets. They manage $205.2 billion assets and provide many other financial management and planning services. Anne Richards is leading the company for several years. Two years ago, the M&G Investments had featured a small decline and lost several billions of dollars due to retail offering outflows. During the last three years their offer for businesses and institutions has beaten the benchmark, and today they invest money in the wide range of new funds, including the High-Grade ABS, European Secured Property Income, and Debt Opportunities 3.

6. Prudential Financial

Fixed income assets: $209.3 billion;

Prudential Financial is ranked on Fortune 500 and Fortune Global 500 lists on a regular basis. It ranks 6th on our list of biggest fixed income managers in the world. They offer a wide variety of services to institutions, corporations, and individuals. Their services include insurance, retirement funds, as well as wealth and investment management. The company has a large network of offices in the United States, and it also works in 30 other countries in Latin America, Asia, and Europe. When it comes to fixed income, in 2013 they have been managing a little bit more than $209 billion in assets.

5. Northern Trust Global Investments

Fixed income assets: $240.8 billion;

As one of the most popular American financial institutions, Northern Trust, next on the list of biggest fixed income managers in the world biggest fixed income managers in the world owns a very diverse portfolio, including more than $240 billion (2013) in fixed income assets. Company’s wide range of financial services includes asset and wealth management and banking and fiduciary services. Northern Trust runs a huge network of offices in the United States and abroad. In March this year, they have been managing more than $8 trillion assets, and in 2010 the company was ranked as the most admired super-regional bank by the Forbes magazine.

4. Fidelity Investments

Fixed income assets: $251.9 billion;

This international company, based in Boston, Massachusetts manages a lot of mutual funds, including more than $251 billion of fixed income assets. They provide a wide variety of products from brokerage to investment advice, retirement, and insurance services. Fidelity Investments also owns the Devonshire Investors, a company arm which allows it to invest more money outside its funds. The company also has several departments like Fidelity Personal and Fidelity Charitable and its biggest mutual funds include Fidelity Contrafund and Fidelity Magellan.

3. Black Rock Inc.

Fixed income assets: $286.6 billion;

The Black Rock Inc. that ranks third on the list of biggest fixed income managers in the world was founded in the 80’s, as a fixed income and risk management institution, and since then, they have grown into one of the biggest fixed income managers in the world. They operate a huge network of 70 offices in 30 countries. If we take into consideration all of their assets ($5.4 trillion) and not just the fixed income ones, the Black Rock Inc. would be the largest asset management company in the world. It is often called the ‘world’s biggest shadow bank,’ due to a huge amount of wealth they are taking care of on a regular basis.

2. State Street Global Advisors

Fixed income assets: $290.6 billion;

At second place on the list of biggest fixed income managers in the world, we have the State Street Global Advisors that helps companies, non-profits, and associations to invest their money responsibly in stocks, mutual funds, and fixed income assets. It runs fixed income assets portfolio that is a little bit larger than $290 billion. For the last couple of years, the company is being governed by the CEO Ron O’Hanley. Apart from providing services to various institutions, SSGA also supports the retail market in the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia. Their services include managing portfolios and setting trust funds. They track indices and calculate their value depending on the market capitalization, industry, investment style, etc.

1. Pimco

Fixed income assets: $1.9 trillion;

This is by far the largest fixed income management firm, which manages more than $1.9 trillion dollars. Almost all of their funds can be described as the fixed income. Although Pimco had several big outflows in the last couple of years, it still strongly retains the leading spot on our list of the biggest fixed income managers in the world. The company headquarters is in Newport Beach, California and it also runs a large part of its business in Europe. Pimco has a very skilled and knowledgeable advisory board, with Gordon Brown (an ex UK prime-minister), Jean-Claude Trichet and Ben Bernanke. One of the best advantages of this firm is that they often integrate social, political and environmental trends and factors into their management process.