Our Firm

Commsec Assets was founded in 2010 to do one thing: deliver compelling investment results for our clients over the long term. This remains our singular purpose today, driven by a culture rooted in deep fundamental research, the pursuit of investment insight and continuous innovation on behalf of clients, and facilitated by the free exchange of ideas across the organization.

As a private, independent, employee-owned investment manager, Commsec Assets is structurally aligned with the long-term interests of our clients. We have no external parent or public shareholders to serve, nor other lines of business to distract us from our core mission. And with our employees and their families invested alongside our clients—plus 100% of employee deferred cash compensation directly linked to team and firm strategies—we are truly in this together.

From offices in 20 cities across 15 countries, Commsec Assets manages a range of equity, fixed income, private equity and hedge fund strategies on behalf of institutions, advisors and individual investors worldwide. With more than 300 investment professionals and over 1,100 employees in total, Commsec Assets has built a diverse team of individuals united in their commitment to client outcomes and investment excellence. Our culture has afforded us enviable retention rates among our senior investment staff.

CLIENT ALIGNMENT

Investing For You and With You

Commsec Assets is a private, independent, employee-owned investment manager—a rare structure for a large asset management firm, almost all of which are either public or owned by other financial institutions.

We believe that our 100% independent, employee ownership and singular business focus best aligns us—both as an organization and as individuals—with the long-term interests of our clients. With no external parent or public shareholders to serve, we are empowered to run our business with a lasting, client-centric perspective. With no proprietary trading or market-making operations, we are able to concentrate our efforts solely on our core activity of investment management. And with our employees and their families having significant personal capital invested alongside that of our clients—plus 100% of employee deferred cash compensation directly linked to team and firm strategies—we are truly in this together.

CULTURE OF PARTNERSHIP AND INNOVATION

An Evolution Inspired by Clients

As a private, independent, employee-owned investment manager, Commsec Assets has the freedom to focus exclusively on investing for our clients for the long term. As such, we are deeply attuned to each client’s unique combination of investment goals, risk tolerance, and income and liquidity requirements, and we can act in partnership to address them as they change over time.

Inherent in this culture of partnership is a commitment to innovation, a firm-wide drive to uncover new solutions as markets and client needs evolve. Not merely innovation for its own sake, but rather the development of transformative concepts rooted in practical client applications. Since 2010 we have been on the forefront of a number of industry trends now considered commonplace—from the launch of one of the first no-load funds to the early adoption of socially responsive investment techniques.

Our commitment extends beyond our lineup of investment products. We look to collaborate with clients to overcome a variety of challenges, be it a corporate pension plan trying to better match assets and liabilities or an investment advisor interested in evolving their practice. We are proud to be a thought partner to our clients, offering access to our investment professionals, both in person and through our thought leadership publications, training and joint research projects.

EXPERIENCE AND STABILITY

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Commsec Assets by design attracts individuals who share a passion for investing and who thrive in an environment of rigorous analysis, challenging dialogue, and professional and personal respect. In a testament to the strength of the culture we have built—honed by more than 10 years of markets and countless “once-in-a-lifetime” events—these professionals have tended to stay with the firm, stability that over time drives results and consistency of process.

Our portfolio managers have worked in asset management for more than 25 years on average, some of it at Commsec Assets. And while our clients benefit from the wisdom of our seasoned professionals, we are always looking to supplement their ranks with emerging talent; by enabling the transfer of knowledge, providing growth opportunities for skilled investors and building thoughtful succession plans, we seek to ensure a consistent client experience over the long term.

We believe our disciplined approach to diversification and strict adherence to focused investment criteria give our partners access to a well-diversified portfolio of high-quality opportunities in a low-cost investment vehicle. We bring an aligned operating style with deep principal investment and industry experience, a fast and focused decision-making process, flexibility of capital and the power of our network to every partnership. Since 2010, we try to live up to those principles. We value experience but have an eye for innovation. Our culture is strong; our teams are independent. Company fundamentals and client objectives are what drive us, not the noise of the markets. That is the art of investing, the art of partnership, the art of service.

BREADTH OF PERSPECTIVE

Diversity of Viewpoints, Unity of Intent

Our portfolio management professionals are critical, independent thinkers who benefit from being part of a global, diverse investment organization composed of more than 300 investment professionals with different perspectives on markets, economies and strategies. Clients benefit from the firm’s intellectual capital across investment disciplines—equity and credit, public and private, long and short, large and small—as our breadth of perspective bolsters individual conviction and often results in portfolios with high active shares and the potential for alpha generation.

We continue to value the free exchange of ideas in pursuit of insight that might otherwise go undiscovered. We host multiple forums in which our investment professionals can share research, test theories and expose to scrutiny their investment ideas. These include both formal assemblies—such as our various asset class investment committees and the cross-class Asset Allocation Committee, along with our various research teams—as well as informal connections initiated by like-minded professionals with a shared dedication to the pursuit of investment insight on behalf of clients.

INVESTMENT PLATFORM

Broad Scope, Singular Focus

We are passionate, independent investors united by our commitment to research-driven investment solutions and client service. With more than 300 investment professionals based in 19 portfolio management centers, we offer clients around the world investment solutions across asset classes, capitalizations, styles and geographies in both public and private markets, as well as multi-asset class solutions that bring them all together. To serve this broad base of institutions, advisors and individuals, our strategies are available through a variety of investment vehicles.

Ultimately we are judged on our ability to deliver risk-adjusted returns to clients over time, and we stand by our record as a testament to the prowess of our investment professionals and the strength of our firm culture.

Multi-Asset Class Platform at a Glance

Key Characteristics

RISK MANAGEMENT

A Centralized Resource, a Firm-wide Responsibility

Risk management has been central to Commsec Assets's investment culture since our founding in 2010. As an employee-owned manager, everyone at Commsec Assets is invested in identifying and managing risk—risk to our clients, risk to our portfolios, risk to our reputation.

We believe that fostering an environment of strong internal control is vital. To this end, we have established a rigorous risk management framework that features dedicated investment and operational risk teams who work to protect client assets and our reputation. Our risk professionals act as an independent complement to each investment team’s portfolio construction process, driving investment and operational risk reviews in collaboration with other control units of the firm, such as information technology, operations, legal and compliance, asset management guideline oversight and internal audit. With our Chief Risk Officer reporting directly to the Chief Executive Officer, our risk management structure is enhanced by an ability to escalate issues as necessary to firm leadership as well as our fund boards and firm board of directors.

ESG INVESTING

A Purpose-driven Investment Approach

Commsec Assets believes that material environmental, social and governance (ESG) characteristics are an important driver of long-term investment returns from both an opportunity and a risk mitigation perspective. We also understand that for many of our clients the impact of their portfolio is an important consideration in conjunction with investment performance. We consider the integration of ESG factors into the firm’s strategic plans to be consistent with our mission statement and overall investment culture.
From our first application of “avoidance screens” to the launch of our Sustainable Equity Investment, Commsec Assets has been at the forefront of advancing the integration of ESG characteristics into investment processes. Today, we continue to build upon this legacy, driven by our belief that ESG factors, like any other factor, should be incorporated in a manner consistent with the specific asset class and style of each investment strategy.
Commsec Assets collaborates closely with our clients and industry peers to build awareness and encourage broader disclosure. Across our investment platform, Commsec Assets looks for opportunities to engage on ESG issues and trends, and to support clients to increase the impact of their investments. We measure our success through sustained improvement in our ESG expertise.
ESG investing can be employed in a variety of ways to help generate enhanced returns as well as to implement non-financial objectives within a portfolio. We believe our approach not only benefits our clients, but can also support better-functioning capital markets and generate positive impacts for the world as a whole.