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2023 Greenwich Leaders: U.S. Investment Consulting
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Investment consultants have always been a critical part of the U.S. institutional asset management business, but new data from Coalition Greenwich shows that the market’s top consultants are becoming more influential than ever.
More than 85% of U.S. institutional investors work with an investment consultant. That usage rate has historically always been high but has ticked incrementally upwards in recent years, and consultant usage is now ubiquitous in some channels. Over 95% of public pension funds currently employ at least one investment consultant.
A growing number of those institutional relationships are held by the largest consultants in the industry. In 2014, the top 20 investment consultants in the United States held about 66% of institutional client relationships, but by 2023, consolidation drove the number up to approximately 85%.
Consultants Provide an Expanding Array of Services
The largest consultants are gaining influence in part because institutional investors rely on their consultants for a wider expanse of functions. More than 70% of institutions use investment consultants to identify new or existing managers as candidates for mandates. For roughly half of asset owners, recommendations from their consultants are the primary means of identifying potential managers. Consultants are also playing a key role in institutions’ monitoring and evaluation of existing managers. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. institutional investors rely on their consultants for ongoing oversight of their managers. In addition, consultants represent an important part of the growing outsourced CIO market.
Consultants also contribute in other crucial areas—especially for smaller institutions with limited investment staffing and resources. For example, almost 80% of U.S. asset owners say they negotiate with asset managers on fees. This percentage climbs to nearly 90% among the largest institutions with $10 billion or more in assets. These institutions rely on consultants to provide benchmark fee data and, in some cases, actually negotiate directly with the manager. As one U.S. institution put it, “Our consultant compares fees of similar products in the current market, and then we work together at getting the best price we can.”
2023 Greenwich Quality Leaders
Every year, asset owners participate in the Coalition Greenwich Voice of Client – U.S. Institutional Investors Study to name the investment consultants they use and to rate the service these partners provide across a range of functions. Those quantitative scores are used to calculate the Greenwich Quality Index (GQI). Consultants with the highest GQI scores are named Greenwich Quality Leaders.
The following graphic shows the investment and client service criteria that play the biggest role in determining GQI.
This year’s Greenwich Quality Leaders have distinguished themselves by receiving the top GQI score. The following tables present the complete list of 2023 Greenwich Quality Leaders in U.S. Investment Consulting.
Todd Glickson, Susan Gould, Erin Dunne, Joseph Mattesi, and Elizabeth McIvor advise on the investment management market in the United States.
Methodology
Between February and November 2023, Coalition Greenwich conducted interviews with 708 individuals from 575 of the largest tax-exempt funds in the United States. These U.S.-based institutional investors are corporate, public, union, and endowment and foundation funds with either pension or investment pool assets greater than $150 million. Study participants were asked to provide quantitative and qualitative evaluations of their asset management and investment consulting providers, including qualitative assessments of those firms soliciting their business and detailed information on important market trends.
