Investment – Department Overview

Equities

With around £90bn of equities under management for a worldwide client base, this is Schroders’ largest asset group, representing 66% of the total assets within our portfolio. We have investment teams in twelve countries, although more than half of our assets are managed in London. Here, a group of specialist professionals oversee a range of products spanning the UK and Europe, in addition to emerging markets and the global equity arena.

We believe that the equities market is inherently inefficient, and by identifying those efficiencies, we can exploit mispriced securities to generate maximum returns for clients. Independent research is key to this, and our investment teams are supported by over 70 analysts worldwide who work off one global research platform.

Fixed Income

Schroders manages around £22bn in fixed income assets, combining institutional, private client and retail funds, covering all sectors of the fixed income arena including government bonds, investment grade corporates, high yield, mortgages, emerging markets and money markets.

As research-driven bond investors, we believe that bond markets are global, interrelated and generally efficient, but that they can overreact to events. We gain a performance advantage in three ways: by using our large team of specialist analysts and portfolio managers to research ideas in their local markets; by utilising new instruments such as credit default swaps to implement trades, and by developing in-house systems to support portfolio management and risk control. As with equities, fixed income teams are supported by over 70 research analysts worldwide.

Quantitative Equity Products

The Quantitative Equity Products (QEP) team was founded in 1996 to research quantitative equity strategies and to develop a risk framework for portfolio management within Schroders. In January 2000 the team applied this expertise in strategy and risk into managing global equity portfolios and today QEP is exclusively dedicated to fund management.

The team, of 16, manages a suite of risk-controlled equity portfolios: Global, North America and Japan. In October 2004 QEP developed an unconstrained Global Value fund, which aims to capture the higher long run returns using a unique approach to portfolio construction. The team has subsequently introduced global ex-US, ex-Japan and ex-Europe funds using the same unconstrained Value approach.

With a successful track record, a stable team and rapidly growing assets (£3.6bn), the Quantitative Equity Products team has been targeted as a key growth area for Schroders.

Multi-Asset

Over the last few years Schroders has invested considerably in its Multi-Asset group and we now have a team in excess of 30, dedicated to providing specialist investment solutions. The team is organised into five separate divisions: economics, multi-manager, structured investments, quantitative research, and asset allocation and portfolio construction. Each of these divisions operates as an autonomous unit, but work together in the construction and management of multi-asset portfolios.

Economics

Our dedicated economics team are market driven and focus specifically on the relationships between the global economy and the global asset markets.

Multi-Manager

The 6-strong Multi-Manager Team was formed in 2002 and focus on two interrelated functions - management of Schroders range of multi-manager portfolios and research of third party investment funds.

Structured Investments

Schroders has an experienced team who specialise in tailoring portfolios for clients with specific objectives that cannot be satisfied fully with traditional investments.

Quantitative Research

The quantitative research team provide dedicated analysis of the global economy, markets, and risk management. They have developed an array of quantitative models that drive large elements of the asset allocation process. This team often works on bespoke requests to tackle specific client requests.

Asset Allocation and Portfolio Construction (Multi-Asset)

The asset allocation team are dedicated solely to the asset allocation function and are responsible for the overall portfolio construction. Our asset allocation process is centred on our Cyclical Market Forum, a quarterly meeting where we get each head of investment to discuss the outlook for their asset class and market. This allows for a ‘bottom-up’ assessment by the people who are closest to the ground.