The U.S. asset management market is at a turning point. Retail client channels continue to gain ground and are once again approaching parity with the institutional channel, following several years of adjustments marked by market volatility.
According to the report The State of U.S. Retail and Institutional Asset Management 2025, published by Cerulli, professionally managed assets in the United States have reached $73.7 trillion, a historic high. Of that total, $36.6 trillion corresponds to retail channels, while the institutional channel holds $37.1 trillion, reflecting an increasingly balanced distribution between both segments.
The retail channel briefly surpassed institutional in market share during 2020 and 2021, before retreating in 2022 due to the sharp correction in equity markets. However, that setback proved temporary. Since then, retail channels have returned to a growth trajectory and are once again nearing the 50% share threshold.
“The significant decline in assets during the 2022 market correction negatively impacted the three- and five-year compound annual growth rates of the retail channel compared to the institutional one,” explained Brendan Powers, director at Cerulli. Nonetheless, the rebound recorded in 2024 marks, according to the analyst, a return to the long-term growth trends that have historically favored the retail segment. In this context, Cerulli anticipates the momentum will continue, driven by pension risk transfers in corporate defined benefit (DB) plans and the migration of assets from defined contribution (DC) plans into IRA accounts.
Beyond the aggregate market evolution, the report highlights the growing importance of intermediaries in reshaping distribution strategies. On the institutional side, Outsourced Chief Investment Officers (OCIOs) continue to consolidate their role as key players. Assets managed by OCIOs in the United States reached $3.3 trillion by the end of 2024, having tripled in less than a decade. While new client acquisition will remain a growth driver, Cerulli notes that replacement mandates are beginning to gain traction in an industry entering a more mature phase.
At the same time, RIA channels are strengthening their role within asset managers’ retail distribution strategies. The strong growth of independent and hybrid channels, driven by advisor movement and active M&A activity, has resulted in a total of $5.9 trillion in professionally managed assets. As M&A transactions, supported by private equity and aggregators, continue to advance, a small group of large firms is beginning to concentrate the majority of assets in the RIA space.
The report also underscores the growing diversification of investment vehicles available to both retail and institutional investors. In the institutional segment, demand typically begins with separately managed accounts but extends to private funds and mutual funds, particularly among smaller institutions or in asset classes with higher operational complexity. In the DC plan space, Collective Investment Trusts (CITs) have become an essential standard.
In retail channels, ETFs and separately managed accounts (SMAs) are gaining prominence, while asset managers expand their offerings of illiquid alternative structures, such as private funds or interval funds, with the aim of facilitating high-net-worth investors’ access to private market strategies.
