There is no question of collective investment trusts’ popularity among retirement plan fiduciaries and investment managers. CITs continued their dominance in 2024, especially for several massive index strategies that appeared in the top 10 lists for both largest CITs by assets and net new flows. Vanguard’s Institutional Total Stock Market CIT topped the list in size, followed closely by offerings from Northern Trust, State Street and BlackRock. The Spartan 500 Index Pool CIT was the fifth largest in terms of absolute size, but led in net flows.
Meanwhile, CITs also continued their asset accumulation in target-date funds. Although mutual funds still attract steady inflows, the data highlight that assets in CIT TDFs ended the year almost double that in mutual fund TDF strategies.
Largest CITs by Assets
| CIT Name | Total Assets $M YE2024 |
| Vanguard Instl Tot Int St Mkt Ix Tr | 250,116.33 |
| Northern Trust Asset Management NT S&P 500 Index Equity Strategy – CIT | 226,798.84 |
| State St S&P 500 Indx | 222,518.71 |
| BlackRock Equity Indx | 213,428.35 |
| Spartan 500 Index Pool | 124,441.43 |
| Fidelity Growth Company CP CIT | 81,948.63 |
| Fidelity Contrafund CP CIT | 56,596.86 |
| BlackRock EAFE Equity Indx | 55,708.90 |
| State St World Dev ex US Indx | 54,886.22 |
| State St US Bond Indx | 49,116.96 |
Largest CITs by Net Flows YE 2024
| CIT Name | Absolute Net New Flows $M 2024 |
| Spartan 500 Index Pool | 64,208.61 |
| Fidelity Short Intmd Enhcd Indx CP CIT | 20,002.86 |
| Vanguard Instl Tot Int St Mkt Ix Tr | 19,017.67 |
| NT Col Aggregate Bond Index-Lending | 12,586.75 |
| State St Global All Cap Eq exUS IdxSL | 10,311.39 |
| NT Col S&P500 Index-DC-Lending | 9,790.58 |
| BlackRock Equity Indx | 7,961.68 |
| AQR Global Risk Premium Low Volatility | 6,617.77 |
| Fidelity Growth Company CP CIT | 6,511.19 |
| Fidelity Contrafund CP CIT | 5,154.45 |
MF TDFs vs. CIT TDFs: All Managers
MF AUM
CIT AUM
MF NNF
CIT NNF
Source: ISS Market Intelligence, MarketPulse Powered by Simfund