Assets under management
What is Assets under management?
Assets under management, or AUM, is the value of assets for which a firm, strategy, or vehicle has defined management or advisory responsibility.
A platform should label gross versus net AUM, valuation date, currency, consolidation, and whether advisory-only, committed, called, borrowed, or double-counted assets are included. A historical series should separate market movement, net flows, acquisitions, disposals, and methodology changes rather than implying every change represents client demand.
When a firm reports both advisory and discretionary totals, users should see the overlap and the exact date on which each component was valued.
What AUM represents
AUM describes business scale, not manager skill, investor wealth, or balance-sheet ownership. It can refer to one portfolio, strategy, fund, legal entity, affiliate group, or firm. The manager usually does not own client assets. Definitions differ across regulatory filings, marketing, fee schedules, and private-market reporting, so headline comparisons can be misleading.
Calculation choices
Public securities are commonly marked at market value, while private assets use periodic valuations. Some firms include leverage, uncalled commitments, advisory assets, model portfolios, or overlapping fund-of-fund exposures. Currency conversion also moves reported AUM. Gross assets, net assets, regulatory assets, fee-earning assets, and assets under advisement answer different questions.
Flows and performance
AUM rises through investment gains, subscriptions, acquisitions, leverage, and currency translation, and falls through losses, redemptions, distributions, or mandate loss. Net flow should remove market and currency effects using a defined method. A growing AUM series therefore does not by itself prove positive client flows or superior performance.
Business and portfolio relevance
Scale can spread fixed costs, support research, and improve bargaining power, but can reduce capacity in less liquid strategies. Revenue depends on fee rates and fee-paying bases rather than total AUM alone. Investors should examine capacity, ownership, concentration by client, profitability, and whether growth changed the strategy's universe or execution costs.
Practical comparison
Reconcile the stated total to funds and mandates, remove double counting, inspect valuation dates, and identify assets that are non-discretionary or not fee paying. Compare average rather than point-in-time AUM when analyzing revenue. Treat estimates cautiously when market closure, stale private marks, or uncalled commitments make the number less immediately realizable.
Also known as: AUM
Sources and further reading
- Investment Advisers: What You Need to Know, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission