Acadian Asset Management was a quant shop before it was fashionable. They began running money on the basis of quantitative analysis in the 1980s. Over time, Acadian evolved over time from a non-U.S. all-cap equity manager to a global manager. Today, they manage over $86 billion in assets.
John Chisholm, co-CEO of Acadian, was formerly the firm’s chief investment officer. He describes Acadian’s investment process as using a quant approach in combination of traditional factor investing (including value, quality, trend, liquidity, capitalization and others) in different types of weightings. Their various offerings include Managed Volatility, Long/Short, and Multi-Asset Class strategies.
The firm developed an optimizer to balance risk, reward and trading costs to create their portfolios. Acadian’s approach allows institutions to engineer risk and reduce trading costs while still obtaining the benefits of factors.
His favorite books are here; a transcript of our conversation is posted here.
You can stream/download the full conversation, including the podcast extras on iTunes, Bloomberg, Overcast, and Stitcher. Our earlier podcasts can all be found at iTunes, Stitcher, Overcast, and Bloomberg.
Next week, we speak with Matthew W. Granade, Chief Market Intelligence Officer and a Managing Director at Point72 Asset Management.
