The LSE Directory / Hedge funds
PanAgora Asset Management is a Boston based quantitative investment manager that builds systematic, model driven portfolios across three strategy groups: Active Equity (including its Dynamic Equity and Stock Selector strategies), Multi Asset (Risk Parity, Diversified Factor Premia and Managed Futures) and Defensive Equity. It is a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission registered investment adviser serving institutional clients, with sovereign wealth funds and pooled investment vehicles making up the largest share of its client base by assets. The firm specialises in fully systematic, research led strategy construction rather than discretionary stock picking, with its investment process overseen by a team that pairs academic researchers with portfolio managers. It is best known in the industry for popularising risk parity, a multi asset allocation approach that balances risk contribution rather than dollar capital across asset classes, a term its longtime Chief Investment Officer of Multi Asset Investments, Edward Qian, coined in 2004. That risk parity and factor premia focus, delivered through institutional separate accounts and commingled vehicles rather than retail funds, is what distinguishes it from both traditional long only managers and discretionary hedge funds. PanAgora was founded in 1989 by Richard A. Crowell, an early pioneer of quantitative investing who died in 1998, as a 50-50 joint venture between Shearson Lehman Brothers and Nippon Life Insurance. Putnam Investments acquired Lehman's half in 1997, then bought out Nippon Life's stake in stages, an additional 30% in 2004 and the final 20% in 2018, giving Putnam full ownership. When Franklin Templeton acquired Putnam Investments in 2023 for 925 million dollars, PanAgora was excluded from that deal and remained with Putnam's parent, Great-West Lifeco. Ownership today is split between PanAgora employees, who can hold up to 20% of the firm's economic interest through a management equity plan, and Great-West Lifeco, an indirect subsidiary of Power Corporation of Canada, which holds the remaining economic interest and all voting control. Regulatory and third party AUM trackers put its assets under management at approximately 44 billion dollars. In September 2024, PanAgora changed its CEO for the first time in twenty years. Eric Sorensen moved to Vice Chair after two decades leading the firm, Bryan Belton, a nearly 20 year PanAgora portfolio manager, was promoted to President and CEO, and George D. Mussalli, previously Chief Investment Officer of Equity Strategies, was promoted into a newly created Global CIO role; all three joined the firm's board of directors as part of the same reshuffle.
