There are a few public global investment manager databases available on Github, but the information is quite limited. The most well-known one is a CSV file listing the top global asset managers in terms of assets under management (AUM). It contains basic information like company name, headquarters location, and AUM. However, more detailed data on investment managers tend to be proprietary and is not freely shared on Github or elsewhere online. Overall, while Github has some open datasets on investing, finding a comprehensive global database covering multiple aspects of investment managers is challenging given commercial sensitivities.
Top global asset managers by AUM dataset on Github has basic information
The CSV dataset on the largest global asset managers provides a snapshot of the top players in the industry globally. It lists the company name, headquarters location, and total assets under management for firms like BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street Global Advisors, and others. This gives a sense of the scale of the biggest investment management companies. However, the data is limited to just a few fields covering only AUM size, without any details on investment strategies, portfolio holdings, performance metrics, or organizational structure. So while interesting, it lacks depth. Expanding this to include additional datapoints on methods, investments, bencharks, and people would require gathering proprietary commercial data from various sources.
Other open data repositories lack comprehensive global coverage
There are other open data platforms like Kaggle and data.world that host some datasets related to investing and asset management. However, these tend to focus on specific segments like hedge funds or mutual funds rather than the global industry. The hedge fund datasets provide certain portfolio metrics, risk profiles, and return data for sample groups of funds. The mutual fund datasets give basic details on offerings, fees, and ratings from platforms like Morningstar. But they are targeted at US retail funds rather than institutional managers. While useful reference samples for analysts, they do not constitute fully populated databases profiling the global investment management universe.
Commercially available databases far more extensive but expensive
Specialized data providers like Preqin, Evestment Alliance, and Burgiss curate far more exhaustive intelligence on investment managers globally. Their databases profile asset owners and asset managers with granular coverage spanning people, portfolio, performance, product, pricing, and other dimensions. These are relied upon by investors conducting due diligence and consultant researchers benchmarking manager stats. But access is expensive, costing potentially millions of dollars a year for comprehensive data feeds. So while Github is free to use, when it comes to manager data it has major gaps relative to commercial databases.
In summary, while Github hosts a few open investment datasets, they offer limited information compared to expensive but information-rich commercial databases used by asset owners and consultants.