Quite a few of the top 25 fastest-growing fund managers for last year came from boutique firms, according to Strategic Insight's Simfund database. SI examined net inflows through November 2011 as a percentage of assets and ranked the managers based on their increase over December 2010′s amount.

Taking in some $79 billion in net inflows during the first 11 months of 2011, these top 25 included a variety of specialized/boutique organizations and industry innovators. According to Avi Nachmany, director of research at Strategic Insight, "… small and mid-size fund managers look to be a significant source of growth going forward, especially as the mutual fund industry continues to be a center of product innovation."

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