Two of the largest global wealth managers, UBS and Merrill Lynch, experienced a slowing of growth in assets under management last year after suffering losses from the US subprime crisis.

UBS assets from affluent clients increased 8.8 per cent to $1.9 trillion (£967 billion) in 2007, compared with 13 per cent growth the year before, according the Scorpio Partnership’s annual private banking benchmark survey.

US based Merrill Lynch saw its assets rise 8.3 per cent to $1.31 trillion, slowing from 10 per cent in 2006, according to the British research firm.

However, total assets actively managed by money-managers for the affluent reached $17.4 trillion in 2007, up 11.6 per cent on 2006. The percentage increase is slightly down on the 13.8 per cent rise in 2006.

Merrill Lynch, still the number one global wealth manager, suffered the biggest writedowns from the subprime crisis last year, amounting to $27.4 billion, while Swiss bank UBS, the third-biggest money manager for the wealthy, had $19.1 billion of markdowns.

HSBC was the only British wealth manager in the top ten with $494 billion worth of assets under investment, an increase of over 21 per cent.

The researchers behind the study said that even though the wealth managers were growing at a slower rate, the figures were positive for the sector.

“This industry is coming of age and may even be a bright light in gloomy markets. The positive results throw even greater emphasis on the potential of the wealth management sector to provide strong revenue and returns for financial groups seeking to chart a course through the current volatile markets,” said Sebastian Dovey, managing partner at Scorpio.

“However, in our view the real opportunity for significant asset growth is still to come, with more than $9 trillion of untapped bankable assets among millionaires still not yet even managed in the sector but it will require visionary banks to win this prize.”

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