April 23, 2024 — Investment consultants have always been a critical part of the U.S. institutional asset management landscape, and new data from Coalition Greenwich shows the market’s top consultants are becoming more influential.

More than 85% of U.S. institutional investors work with an investment consultant. That usage rate has historically always been high, but in recent years it has trended incrementally upwards and consultant usage is now nearly ubiquitous in some channels. Nearly 95% of public pension funds now employ at least one investment consultant.

A growing number of those institutional relationships are held by one of the largest consultants in the industry.

“In 2014, the top 20 investment consultants in the U.S. held about two-thirds of institutional client relationships,” says Todd Glickson, Head of Investment Management – North America at Coalition Greenwich and author of Investment Consultants Grow in Size and Influence. “By 2023, consolidation among consultants had driven that share to 85%.”

Consultants Providing an Expanding Array of Services
These sizeable consultants are gaining influence in part because institutional investors rely on their consultants for an ever-expanding list of functions. More than 70% of institutions use investment consultants to identify new or existing managers as candidates for mandates. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. institutions rely on their consultants for ongoing oversight of their managers, and a significant share say they look to their consultants for help negotiating fees with asset managers. Finally, consultants represent a crucial part of the growing market for OCIO.

2023 Greenwich Quality Leaders in Overall U.S. Investment Consulting
Every year, Coalition Greenwich asks the institutional investors participating in our annual research program to name the investment consultants they use and to rate the service these partners provider across a range of functions. We use those quantitative scores to calculate the Greenwich Quality Index (GQI). This year’s Greenwich Quality Leaders have all distinguished themselves by receiving the top GQI Score.

The 2023 Greenwich Quality Leaders in Overall U.S. Investment Consulting for the “Large Consultants” category are CAPTRUST, Graystone Consulting and Segal Marco Advisors, and the winners for the “Midsize Consultants” category are Angeles Investment Advisors, Asset Consulting Group and Mariner Institutional (formerly AndCo Consulting).