State Street Corporation, is a global financial services and bank holding company headquartered at One Congress Street in Boston with operations worldwide. It is the second-oldest continually operating United States bank; its predecessor, Union Bank, was founded in 1792. State Street is ranked 14th on the list of largest banks in the United States by assets. It is one of the largest asset management companies in the world with US$3.7 trillion under management and US$40.0 trillion under custody and administration in 2023. It is the largest custodian bank in the world, providing securities services and it is considered a systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board. Along with BlackRock and Vanguard, State Street is considered to be one of the Big Three index fund managers that dominate corporate America.
A mutual fund is an investment fund that pools money from many investors to purchase securities. The term is typically used in the United States, Canada, and India, while similar structures across the globe include the SICAV in Europe, and the open-ended investment company (OEIC) in the UK.
A real estate investment trust is a company that owns, and in most cases operates, income-producing real estate. REITs own many types of commercial real estate, including office and apartment buildings, studios, warehouses, hospitals, shopping centers, hotels and commercial forests. Some REITs engage in financing real estate. REITs act as a bridge between the worlds of housing and urban development on one hand, and institutional investors and financial markets on the other. They are typically categorized into commercial REITs (C-REITs) and residential REITs (R-REITs), with the latter focusing on housing assets such as apartments and single-family homes.
Fidelity Investments, formerly known as Fidelity Management & Research (FMR), is an American multinational financial services corporation based in Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1946, the company is one of the largest asset managers in the world, with $5.4 trillion in assets under management, and $14.1 trillion in assets under administration, as of June 2024, Fidelity Investments operates a brokerage firm, manages a large family of mutual funds, provides fund distribution and investment advice, retirement services, index funds, wealth management, securities execution and clearance, asset custody, and life insurance.
Shareholder activism is a form of activism in which shareholders use equity stakes in a corporation to put pressure on its management. A fairly small stake may be enough to launch a successful campaign. In comparison, a full takeover bid is a much more costly and difficult undertaking. The goals of shareholder activism range from financial to non-financial. Shareholder activists can address self-dealing by corporate insiders, although large stockholders can also engage in self-dealing to themselves at the expense of smaller minority shareholders.
Putnam Investments is an investment management firm founded in 1937 by George Putnam, who established one of the first balanced mutual funds, The George Putnam Fund of Boston.
Mellon Financial Corporation was an American investment firm which was once one of the world's largest money management firms. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, it was in the business of institutional and high-net-worth individual asset management, including the Dreyfus family of mutual funds, business banking, and shareholder and investor services. On December 4, 2006, it announced a merger agreement with Bank of New York, to form BNY Mellon. After regulatory and shareholder approval, the banks completed the merger on July 2, 2007.
Manulife Financial Corporation is a Canadian multinational insurance company and financial services provider headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. The company operates in Canada and Asia as "Manulife" and in the United States primarily through its John Hancock Financial division. As of December 2021, the company employed approximately 38,000 people and had 119,000 agents under contract, and has CA$1.4 trillion in assets under management and administration. Manulife at one point serviced over 26 million customers worldwide.
BlackRock, Inc. is an American multinational investment company. Founded in 1988, initially as an enterprise risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager, with US$10 trillion in assets under management as of December 31, 2023. Headquartered at 50 Hudson Yards in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, BlackRock has 78 offices in 38 countries, and clients in 100 countries. BlackRock is the manager of the iShares group of exchange-traded funds, and along with The Vanguard Group and State Street, it is considered to be one of the Big Three index fund managers. Its Aladdin software keeps track of investment portfolios for many major financial institutions and its BlackRock Solutions division provides financial risk management services. As of 2023, BlackRock was ranked 229th on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue.
An open-ended investment company or investment company with variable capital is a type of open-ended collective investment formed as a corporation under the Open-Ended Investment Company Regulations 2001 in the United Kingdom. The terms "OEIC" and "ICVC" are used interchangeably with different investment managers favouring one over the other. In the UK OEICs are the preferred legal form for new open-ended investment over the older unit trust.
State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) is the investment management division of State Street Corporation founded in 1978 and the world's fourth largest asset manager, with nearly $4.14 trillion (USD) in assets under management as of December 31, 2021.
Socially responsible investing (SRI) is any investment strategy which seeks to consider financial return alongside ethical, social or environmental goals. The areas of concern recognized by SRI practitioners are often linked to environmental, social and governance (ESG) topics. Impact investing can be considered a subset of SRI that is generally more proactive and focused on the conscious creation of social or environmental impact through investment. Eco-investing is SRI with a focus on environmentalism.
The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) is an association advocating for corporate social responsibility. Its 300 member organizations comprise faith communities, asset managers, unions, pensions, NGOs and other investors. ICCR members engage hundreds of corporations annually in an effort to foster greater corporate accountability. ICCR's members file shareholder resolutions on issues such as climate change, human rights, corporate governance, financial practices, and other social and environmental concerns. The organization was founded in 1971.
Management is a type of labor with a special role of coordinating the activities of inputs and carrying out the contracts agreed among inputs, all of which can be characterized as "decision making". Managers usually face disciplinary forces by making themselves irreplaceable in a way that the company would lose without them. A manager has an incentive to invest the firm's resources in assets whose value is higher under him than under the best alternative manager, even when such investments are not value-maximizing.
Macquarie Group Limited, known more commonly as Macquarie Bank, is a global investment banking and financial services group providing banking, financial advisory and investment, and funds management services, to institutional, corporate, and retail clients and counterparties, around the world, headquartered in Sydney and listed in Australia. Macquarie Bank employs more than 20,000 staff across four operating groups in 34 markets and its Investment Banking division is Australia's top ranked mergers and acquisitions adviser with more than A$871 billion in assets under management and is the world's largest infrastructure asset manager.
Needham & Company, LLC is an independent investment bank and asset management firm specializing in advisory services and financings for growth companies. Needham & Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Needham Group, which also operates a private equity investment business and an investment management business.
ShareAction is a registered charity that promotes Responsible Investment.
Corporate law in Vietnam was originally based on the French commercial law system. However, since Vietnam's independence in 1945, it has largely been influenced by the ruling Communist Party. Currently, the main sources of corporate law are the Law on Enterprises, the Law on Securities and the Law on Investment.
Corporate finance is the area of finance that deals with the sources of funding, and the capital structure of businesses, the actions that managers take to increase the value of the firm to the shareholders, and the tools and analysis used to allocate financial resources. The primary goal of corporate finance is to maximize or increase shareholder value.
The Dwight Hall Socially Responsible Investment Fund at Yale is an undergraduate-run socially responsible investment fund in the United States. Initially seeded with $50,000 from the Dwight Hall organization endowment, the fund is expected by the Dwight Hall Board of Directors and Trustees to grow to a $500,000 fundraising target. Managed by a committee of twenty undergraduate Yale College students, the fund makes use of traditional methods of socially responsible investing (SRI) to have a positive environmental and social impact while aiming to outperform standard investment benchmarks and maximize financial return.
