MMI-Cerulli Q4 2025 Advisory Solutions Data

Managed Account Assets Grew 19.1% in 2025, surpassing $16 trillion - MMI-Cerulli Data

The newest edition of MMI-Cerulli Advisory Solutions Quarterly, with data through 12/31/2025, is now available for download.

Total managed account industry assets grew 3.2% quarterly, to reach $16.3 trillion in Q4 2025. ETF advisory programs (5.6%) experienced the strongest growth in the quarter, followed by unified managed accounts (UMA) (4.5%) and separate account programs (SMA) (3.6%). Despite muted quarterly growth, industry assets boasted an annual growth rate of 19.1% and a 2-year increase of 42.6%. While much of this is a byproduct of strong market returns, managed account asset growth outpaced even the S&P 500 (17.9%) over a one-year period due to the ongoing shift toward fiduciary wealth management and the rise in demand for personalized investment strategies.

Total net flows finished the year at $1.08 trillion, with Q4 2025 showing the strongest flows of the year, totaling $303.4 billion. Continuing the trend seen in the first three quarters of the year, unified managed accounts ($94.9 billion) and separate accounts ($88.1 billion) accounted for the largest flows in Q4. Following three consecutive quarters of net outflows, rep-as-advisor (RA) programs posted their first positive netflows of the year in Q4, gaining a modest $1.8 billion. While manager-traded SMA asset classes are still dominated by direct indexing ($1,155 billion), municipal fixed income ($700 billion), and taxable fixed income ($404 billion), Cerulli began tracking two new SMA categories in Q4 2025: tax-aware long/short and options overlay. Tax-aware long/short strategies ($48.8 billion) have already risen to the 8th most common manager-traded asset class, as reported to Cerulli.

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Key Asset Management Challenges

This edition of Advisory Solutions Quarterly also analyzes two key challenges asset managers face when engaging with wealth managers: revenue sharing and SMA redemption rates.

As asset managers attempt to stand out in an investment management environment inching closer to commoditization, deciding when and where to engage in revenue-sharing agreements is an important decision. In 2025, as firms grapple with where to spend their dollars, Cerulli asked retail asset managers which revenue-sharing agreements they place the most value in. The top choices involved opportunities to have their investment products directly integrated into a client's portfolio (e.g., inclusion in home-office models, select lists), whereas managers place less value on opportunities that do not directly impact portfolio incorporation (e.g., data packages, marketing programs).

Separate accounts have exploded in recent years due to increased demand for personalized portfolios, their flexibility in assisting with tax management, and the proliferation of unified platforms. As many new asset managers entered the SMA space, there was an expectation that SMAs would have lower redemption rates than those of pooled vehicles, since most of these portfolios are personalized for individual investors. Many SMA managers have found that these products are not quite as 'sticky' as they originally thought. Cerulli examines SMA redemption rates relative to mutual funds for both equity and fixed-income products.

The chart below shows the value that asset managers assign to different collaboration opportunities when negotiating revenue-sharing agreements with broker/dealers and managed account sponsors.

Asset Manager Revenue Sharing Opportunities

Analyst Note: Asset managers were asked, "Cerulli is trying to understand the financial and economic value an asset manager places on certain opportunities to collaborate with a broker/dealer or managed account sponsor when negotiating a revenue-sharing agreement. Please rate the value to your firm of the opportunities outlined below."
Source: Cerulli Associates

Opportunity	No Value	Moderate Value	Significant Value
Opportunity to have your products selected for home-office model portfolios	4%	4%	91%
Opportunity to be selected for inclusion in SMA, ETF, or mutual fund wrap	9%	9%	83%
Opportunity to be included on select lists	0%	17%	83%
Opportunity to offer your own model portfolios	17%	9%	74%
Access to advisors	0%	35%	65%

of asset managers identify opportunity to have products selected for home-office model portfolios as of significant value

SMA asset managers prefer to engage in revenue-sharing agreements that place their investment strategies front and center with the advisor, whether through inclusion in model portfolios, wrap programs, or select lists.

Dive deeper into the report for insights in four key areas:

Asset management distribution
Long-term managed accounts industry trends
Top-managed account program sponsors across all industry segments
Asset allocation model portfolios

MMI-Cerulli Advisory Solutions Quarterly

The Advisory Solutions Quarterly periodical provides holistic analyses of the U.S. fee-based advisory industry, which includes sponsors (broker/dealer firms) that offer managed account programs and the asset managers that distribute those programs through their platforms.

MMI members can use this data to deepen their understanding of:

Managed account program type assets and growth rates
Quarterly managed account flows by program type
Managed account sponsor firm assets at the program level
Separate account manager assets at the trading discretion level
Separate account asset classes in highest use by trading discretion type

MMI-Cerulli Advisory Solutions Data Portal

The sponsor and manager dashboards on the MMI-Cerulli Advisory Solutions Data portal on Cerulli’s Lodestar platform have now been updated with the Q4 2025 data. As a reminder, MMI members that contribute their advisory solutions data to Cerulli on a quarterly basis have access to this online portal. It allows users to take a deeper dive into the MMI-Cerulli dataset – with the ability to sort, filter and export the data for business planning and presentation purposes.