Three of South Africa’s largest asset managers are predicting an uptick in mergers and acquisitions in the sector as falling fees and stagnant savings force fund managers to either buy out smaller players or merge their operations with rivals.

The CEOs of Ninety One, Coronation, and Stanlib, told delegates at the inaugural INN8 Invest summit in Johannesburg on Wednesday that SA’s stagnant economy cannot support the number of fund managers in the country.

FirstRand-owned Rand Merchant Bank said last month that more than 500 asset management firms are operating in SA, but the bank expects this number to shrink over the next five years with the majority of consolidation occurring among asset managers with less than R10 billion in assets under management.