Half of investment companies shares by value are now owned by institutions (£89bn), a new report has revealed.
This dwarfs the 25% held by wealth managers (£44bn), 23% by private investors (£41bn) and 2% by adviser platforms (£4bn).
The findings have come from the Association of Investment Companies (AIC) report on the ownership of investment companies 2023.
Institutions are significant shareholders of alternative asset investment companies, with a share of 70%.
Additionally, private investors have a larger stake in investment companies that invest in equities, making up 33% of the shareholder base.
Wealth managers make up more of the shareholder base of equity investment companies (28%) than alternative investment companies (20%).
When comparing these results to the previous year (2022), institutions marginally increased their share of investment companies’ shareholder base, from 49% at the end of December 2022 to 50%.
The share of wealth managers, meanwhile, decreased by 1% from 26% to 25%.
The top institutional investors are asset managers such as BlackRock, Columbia Threadneedle, Vanguard, Schroders and Fidelity, as well as specialist investors such as City of London Investment Management, Allspring Global Investments and 1607 Capital Partners.
The top wealth managers included Rathbones and Investec, which merged last year, as well as Evelyn Partners, Brewin Dolphin and Quilter Cheviot.
The top three private investor platforms were Hargreaves Lansdown, interactive investor and AJ Bell, which between them account for 15% of the shareholder base of investment companies.
The most substantial adviser platforms are Transact, Embark and Raymond James.
AIC chief executive Richard Stone said: “This report is the most comprehensive analysis ever of investment company ownership.
“It reveals that our shareholder base is as diverse as investment companies themselves, from the largest institutions and wealth managers all the way through to financial advisers and private investors holding shares on platforms.
“This has always been the case, from the days when investment companies were invented in 1868 to provide the investor of moderate means with the same advantages as large, sophisticated investors.
“Investment companies are a UK success story, giving investors access to a wide range of global opportunities and channelling capital into the drivers of future economic growth, such as infrastructure and the transition to net zero.
“We will update this analysis regularly to follow trends in the industry’s shareholder base and draw out more insights from the data.”
The AIC analysis is based on shareholder data from Argus Vickers and covers £177bn of shareholdings, representing 87% of the industry’s total market capitalisation excluding VCTs at the end of December 2023.