Asia’s top wealth managers by asset class, explained

AsianInvestor Wealth’s Asset Class Awards are designed to recognise leading wealth managers and product providers across Asia.

As a sister brand to AsianInvestor, our focus is firmly on the private wealth and intermediary segment. These awards assess firms operating within the wealth management landscape, including those serving private banks, external asset managers, family offices and high-net-worth clients across the region.

Our methodology has been developed specifically for the wealth channel and centres on identifying consistent performers within each asset class category.

All submissions were reviewed by a judging panel comprising experienced wealth practitioners and industry experts from across Asia. The panel evaluated each entry based on the information provided, alongside their broader knowledge of market positioning and execution within the wealth segment.

The AsianInvestor Wealth editorial team conducted an additional layer of review to ensure consistency and rigour in the final selection process.

Following detailed discussion and comparison across submissions, the judges agreed on the winners and, where appropriate, highly commended firms in each asset class category.

In today’s announcement, we outline the rationale behind the selection of winners across the asset class awards. We also highlight firms that received highly commended recognition.

These awards aim to provide clarity on which managers have demonstrated strength within specific asset classes in Asia’s wealth market.

ASIAN FIXED INCOME
Wellington Management

Wellington Management's Asia Credit Income Fund delivered exceptional performance during the eligibility period, achieving a net return of 9.4% and outperforming the benchmark by 384 basis points. As of September 30, 2025, AUM reached $120 million, of which the UCITS vehicle's AUM grew by over 56% to $46 million.

A combination of factors drove outperformance: disciplined credit selection, dynamic allocation across corporates and sovereigns, and active duration management.

The A- average credit quality of the portfolio was higher than the benchmark's BBB+, with an effective duration of 2.57 years versus 4.52 years for the index. Such defensive positioning captured attractive carry while managing rate volatility.

Despite the volatile macro landscape, the strategy was able to remain aligned with its objectives of delivering long-term total returns and regular income, by balancing big-picture positioning with tactical agility.

Notably, the emphasis on risk-adjusted performance was a key differentiator. This reflects a disciplined approach to risk budgeting and a willingness to under-yield peers when the risk-reward skew is unfavourable, rather than chase incremental gains at the expense of capital preservation. Duration management illustrates this philosophy in action – by mid-2025, the team anticipated lower policy rates and leaned into longer duration despite short-term volatility, a decision that proved additive to returns in Q3.

ASIA EX-JAPAN EQUITY
Federated Hermes

With strong returns through rigorous fundamental research and active stewardship, Federated Hermes' Asia ex-Japan equity strategy was a deserving winner.

The strategy’s sustained outperformance against its benchmark over multiple periods continued last year, underscoring its defensive qualities during market stress. And as of September 30 2025, AUM surpassed $6 billion, marking nearly a 45% increase from a year earlier.

This success is built on a bottom-up, contrarian philosophy – investing in companies attractively priced relative to their quality, utilising liquidity and size screen to narrow a universe of 18,000 stocks to about 250. The team then applies rigorous fundamental and ESG analysis to select roughly 100 investable names, in turn constructing a portfolio of 45 to 60 mispriced stocks.

Among the strategy’s notable achievements, it made a transformative contribution to the South Korean market by addressing long-standing governance issues that suppressed valuations. It sparked national debate, gained media traction and, ultimately, influenced legislative changes.

That engagement delivered measurable benefits for investors. Addressing structural inefficiencies and championing governance reforms contributed to a 43% rise in the MSCI Korea Index (US dollar terms) by August 2025, making it one of the world’s best-performing markets.

This achievement underscores the strategy’s commitment to long-term value creation through active stewardship and disciplined contrarian investing.

US EQUITY
Global Value Chain Investment Corp. Ltd

Global Value Chain Investment's Golden Eagle Global Trends Fund delivered strong AUM growth, outstanding returns, superior risk management and agile portfolio execution during the awards period. That reflected an innovative approach to analysing global supply chains and identifying investment opportunities.

By the end of September 30 2025, the Fund’s AUM had increased by around 63% to nearly $163 million, with a return of 83% during the period – significantly outperforming the MSCI ACWI Index by more than 15%.

The methodology of the Fund enables it to uncover value in companies positioned at critical points within global value chains. The performance stems from this bottom-up, company-specific selection process, which is anchored in regional competitive dynamics and fundamental research.

During the review period, this approach resulted in several key successes. The fund achieved a sharper focus on tech innovation, strategically increasing AI-themed exposure to 41%. It identified key enablers early, in turn uncovering and creating value.

The team proactively managed geopolitical risk, such as in the China-US trade and technology sectors, to make the portfolio more resilient and secure. Additionally, the fund embedded a disruptive innovation framework to pursue wealth creation from improvements in labour productivity.

INFRASTRUCTURE
KKR

KKR's infrastructure investment platform was a stand-out success during the eligibility period, leveraging its global offering and deep sector expertise to generate strong returns for investors.

This reinforced the firm's comprehensive approach to the asset class, spanning diverse sectors including digital, energy, utilities, renewables, transport, and social infrastructure – with particular strength in the Asia Pacific region. In short, the strategy continued to focus on essential services and critical infrastructure assets that generate stable, long-term cash flows while supporting economic development.

In 2025, KKR made several notable infrastructure investments across Asia Pacific, including Queensland Airports, ProTen, the country’s largest agricultural infrastructure platform, Zenith Energy, a leading independent power producer, and completed its minority investment in ST Telemedia Global Data Centres, for which it has since announced a full buyout. Collectively, these reflect consistent deployment by KKR’s global network and strong local presence across the region.

The firm's commitment to operational excellence, strategic value creation and disciplined capital allocation earned recognition for its professionalism and ability to deliver sustainable returns to investors.

In addition, the firm's disciplined approach to due diligence, combined with active asset management capabilities, further helped it deliver strong risk-adjusted returns across market cycles.

BEST PRIVATE CREDIT MANAGER
Blackstone

Blackstone demonstrated its leadership in private credit during the eligibility period, capitalising on having one of the largest and most experienced private credit teams in the industry, spanning direct lending, opportunistic credit, mezzanine financing and other private credit strategies.

The firm's extensive origination network, built through decades of relationships across industries and geographies, continued to provide access to proprietary deal flow.

For example, it led a $2 billion financing for an IT services company, with a 525-basis point spread over SOFR and more than 50% LTV on the senior secured facility. The firm also provided more than $1 billion in new financings to an aerospace maintenance programme provider. This also had a 525-basis point spread over SOFR.

These deals reflect an investment approach which emphasises rigorous underwriting standards, comprehensive due diligence and active portfolio management – with Blackstone's flexible capital solutions to borrowers, plus its disciplined approach to pricing and terms, resulting in consistent strong returns while managing downside risk effectively.

The portfolio is defensively positioned, with 92% private investments and a focus on sectors like software, professional services and healthcare providers and services, collectively comprising nearly 50% of the portfolio. The strength is further highlighted by: 97% senior secured debt; 97% floating rate investments; and 43% average loan-to-value ratio.

BEST PRIVATE CREDIT MANAGER (Highly commended)
StepStone Group

StepStone Group earned recognition for its private credit platform, successfully managing inflows and redemptions without compromising investment quality.

The firm took a prudent approach to liquidity governance, combining “natural liquidity” from loan repayments, unutilised leverage facilities and ongoing monthly subscriptions. This enabled the Fund to meet redemption requests and sustain consistent quarterly distributions to investors despite market volatility. For example, it delivered attractive risk-adjusted returns consistent within its 8% to 10% net return target.

Disciplined credit selection, defensive positioning and diversified exposure across industries in the senior secured, first-lien US middle-market lending space contributed to stable NAV performance and income yield.

BEST PRIVATE EQUITY MANAGER
StepStone Group

StepStone Group's private equity team delivered strong results during the eligibility period, highlighting the firm's leadership in providing access to attractive opportunities through disciplined execution, proactive portfolio adjustments and a globally diversified platform.

For example, the StepStone Private Venture and Growth Fund achieved a net return of nearly 24% during the period, with outstanding trades including SpaceX, OpenAI, X.AI, Revolut, and Anduril. AUM shot up by 163% to nearly $343 million.

In particular, the Fund benefited from StepStone’s “flywheel” sourcing model, drawing opportunities from over 300 VC and growth managers across secondaries, co-investment and primaries, to enhance flexibility and responsiveness to shifting market conditions and capital inflows, and ensuring consistent access to high-quality deal flow.

Meanwhile, the StepStone Private Markets Fund saw a net return of more than 11% during the same time, and an increase in AUM of 327% to $37 million on the back of secondary LP-led trades at a discount – including the Thoma Bravo Fund, CVC Capital Partners Fund and Apollo Investment Fund IX.

Such disciplined participation in the secondary market enhanced potential upside and contributed to stable performance even in a subdued exit environment. Also notable during the eligibility period was the strong liquidity momentum, with consistent realisations and income distributions.

BEST REAL ESTATE MANAGER
Blackstone

The Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT) delivered a net return of just over 8% in 2025, outperforming most real estate peers, by tapping into the rapidly growing demand for data centres to cap a year of consistent positive performance.

To help achieve this, the REIT leveraged one of the largest real estate investment platforms in the world with far-reaching capabilities in acquisitions, development, asset management and value creation across all major property sectors.

This supported complex transactions, large-scale capital improvement programmes and operational enhancements to maximise property values. Coupled with Blackstone's ability to identify emerging trends, capitalise on market dislocations and create value through active management, the firm continued to deliver for investors.

BREIT’s competitive edge in this award also reflects its investment targets – stable, income-generating commercial real estate with selective exposure to real estate debt investments.

That has created a portfolio with over 4,500 properties and 93% occupancy rate, diversified across sectors – the top three being Industrial (24%), multi-family (20%) and data centres (17%) – concentrated in the fastest-growing parts of the US where there are favourable demographics in terms of higher population, job and wage growth.