Blog · Wallet share and penetration · Asset managers
A working method for share of wallet in asset management distribution: what counts as the wallet, which rows you need from your own systems, the roll-up level by level, and the three places the number usually goes wrong.
Share of wallet is the one number that tells a distribution team whether a relationship is deep or merely large. A client can be your biggest by revenue and still give you a fraction of what they allocate to strategies like yours. This guide sets out how to compute it from the data an asset manager already holds, how to roll it up so the desk, the regions and the salespeople agree, and where the number usually breaks.
For a single client and a single strategy:
Share of wallet = assets (or net flows) you hold from the client in that strategy ÷ the client's total allocation to that strategy type
The denominator is the wallet. It is never in your systems, and that is the whole difficulty. The numerator you know to the penny.
Two versions matter, and they should be reported separately:
| Version | Numerator | Answers |
|---|---|---|
| Stock | Assets under management from the client, by strategy | Where do we stand today |
| Flow | Net flows from the client over the period, by strategy | Where is it going |
A relationship with a high stock share and negative flows is a retention problem dressed up as a good account. A low stock share with strong inflows is a growth account that the stock number hides.
Everything comes from files the firm already produces.
Client names can be replaced with IDs before any of this leaves the systems it came from. The measure does not need a name.
The figure is only trusted if it agrees at every level. Compute it bottom up and assert as you go.
The identity that must hold at every level is simple:
held(desk) = Σ held(regions) = Σ held(salespeople) = Σ held(clients)
If it does not, stop. A client counted under two salespeople, a strategy renamed mid-year, or a wallet estimate applied twice will each break it, and each shows up as a variance at exactly one level.
A UK desk with three salespeople and a fixed income strategy. Figures in millions.
| Client | Salesperson | Held | Wallet | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| client_2001 | SP-03 | 120 | 400 | 30% |
| client_2002 | SP-03 | 45 | 900 | 5% |
| client_2003 | SP-04 | 210 | 350 | 60% |
| client_2004 | SP-04 | 15 | 600 | 2.5% |
| client_2005 | SP-05 | 80 | 200 | 40% |
Salesperson SP-03 holds 165 of a 1,300 wallet, 12.7 percent. SP-04 holds 225 of 950, 23.7 percent. SP-05 holds 80 of 200, 40 percent. The desk holds 470 of 2,450, 19.2 percent.
The interesting row is client_2002: the second-largest wallet on the desk and a 5 percent share. That is the account the number was built to find. client_2004 is the other one: a 600 wallet and 15 held. Between them there is more headroom than the rest of the desk combined.
The wallet is applied inconsistently. One client's wallet is total assets, another's is the allocation to the strategy type. Shares are then not comparable. Record the basis per client and use one basis per report.
Strategies are renamed or merged. A product rebrand halfway through the year splits one strategy into two rows, and the share for the old name collapses to zero. Keep a mapping table from every historical name to the current one and apply it before the roll-up.
Clients sit under two salespeople. A client covered jointly, or reassigned mid-year, appears twice and doubles the held figure at the desk level while each salesperson's figure looks right. The level assertion catches it: salespeople sum to more than the desk.
Flows are netted at the wrong level. Subscriptions and redemptions netted per client and per strategy is right. Netted per client across strategies hides a switch from one of your strategies to another as zero flow.
The first time, the work is the mapping: which columns are client, strategy, salesperson and value, and where the wallet comes from. After that the same export, mapped the same way, produces the same roll-up, and the assertions tell you the moment something in the source has changed. The head of distribution gets the ranked list of low-share, large-wallet clients; each salesperson gets their own; nobody rebuilds the spreadsheet.
Covirage does this on the exports as they are, with client IDs, and shows the validation report before any screen is drawn. The asset managers page describes the setup, and you can upload a sample and see the roll-up on your own rows in your browser.
There is no universal benchmark. Consultants' surveys put the median institutional relationship at a single-digit share of a client's total assets, and a top-three manager for a strategy at twenty to forty percent. The useful comparison is your own distribution across clients: which are above your median, which are below, and which have grown.
Three sources, in order of quality: consultant or benchmark data you already buy, the client's own disclosures such as an annual report or a scheme's investment strategy statement, and an estimate from the client's known assets under management multiplied by a typical allocation to your strategy type. Record which one you used per client.
Both, kept apart. Assets tell you where you stand; flows tell you where it is going. A client with a high share of assets and negative net flows is a retention problem. A client with a low share and positive flows is a growth account.