Macquarie cedes its crown

Last week, Macquarie Asset Management announced that it had reached final close on the sixth vintage of its US infrastructure fund at US$6.8 billion ($10.5 billion).

In isolation they sound like big dollars, and you'd expect them to be. For as long as most of us can remember, Macquarie has ruled the global stage as the world's largest infrastructure manager. Indeed, that's still what Macquarie calls itself.

Until November, Macquarie had topped Infrastructure Investor's annual rankings – based on capital raised in the prior five years – since inception. But when the latest leader board was unveiled, Macquarie had fallen to fourth, behind Brookfield, Global Infrastructure Partners (owned by BlackRock) and KKR. 

Macquarie doesn't want to be measured this way, preferring to be judged on total assets under management. And fair enough; infrastructure, even more than private equity, is an asset-gathering exercise. By total infrastructure AUM, Macquarie is still numero uno, leading Brookfield by €80 billion (US$93 billion) with GIP a distant third.[[Though Brookfield's numbers in this calculation are now two years out of date and Macquarie's are 12 months old.]] But these numbers are more a reflection of Macquarie's trailing dominance.