Troubles aplenty, but Bank of America still largest wealth manager

Bank of America Corp. still heads a ranking of the world's 20 biggest wealth managers while BNP Paribas SA climbed two positions to ninth place, according to Scorpio Partnership. Morgan Stanley was second, followed by Zurich-based UBS AG, which was one of five Swiss private banks in the top 20, London- based Scorpio said in a survey of almost 200 institutions published today. Market gains helped boost assets managed by these banks by 11 percent last year with the top 20 overseeing a combined $11.1 trillion, Scorpio said. The rate of net new money inflows declined on average by almost 19 percent from 2009 and many banks saw margins squeezed, according to Scorpio. “If there were to be another market crisis of even a minor scale, we would be very concerned for many institutions and their future,” said Sebastian Dovey, a partner at Scorpio. “Many firms need to upgrade and modernize or else call time on their exposure to this client segment.” The industry's average cost-to-income ratio worsened by almost 1 percentage point to 79.76 percent last year as expenses increased, especially among smaller wealth managers, the survey showed. According to Scorpio's ranking, which is based on end-2010 data, it was a particular good year for BNP Paribas. The French-based bank saw a 45.7% increase in assets under management from 2009. (Click on the following link to see the top ten wealth managers in this year's survey --Bloomberg News--