![]() | |
Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Investment management |
Founded | 1972 |
Founder | Dennis Tito |
Headquarters | Santa Monica, California, United States |
Key people | Mark Makepeace (CEO) [1] |
Products | Stock indexes, Analytical software, Consulting services, Fund of funds |
AUM | US$83 Billion (May 08, 2023) [2] |
Number of employees | 350+ |
Website | wilshire |
Wilshire Associates, Inc. is an American independent investment management firm that offers consulting services and analytical products and manages fund of funds investment vehicles for a global client base. Wilshire manages capital for more than 600 institutional investors globally representing more than $8 trillion of capital. Wilshire is also known for the creation of the Wilshire 5000 stock index in 1974 and more recently the Wilshire 4500 stock index. [3]
Wilshire operates from four business units:
Wilshire is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, with offices in the U.S. in New York, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Denver as well as internationally in London, Singapore, Amsterdam, Melbourne, Suzhou and Hong Kong. [4]
Wilshire was founded in 1972 by Dennis Tito, who was an early pioneer of applying computer-based technologies to investment applications. Since the early 1970s, the firm developed from a technology firm into an investment management operation. In 1974, the firm created its signature Wilshire 5000 Stock index, which is a widely used index of all stocks actively traded in the United States.
Wilshire established an early reputation[ citation needed ] by creating the first asset/liability model for pension funds in the 1970s, ten years before actuarial and accounting firms began to adopt this technology. Wilshire was also among the first to produce investment management tools to create index funds, optimize portfolios, construct bond portfolios and measure performance.[ citation needed ]
In 1981, Wilshire launched its investment consulting business to address the needs of the plan sponsor community providing support for the pensions' investment professionals. Also in the early 1980s, Wilshire began to develop its own investment products. In the late 1980s and early 90s, Wilshire began to expand its investment activities into private market investments creating a series of private equity and venture capital product offerings.
In 2003, Wilshire was targeted by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in connection to its trading practices as part of a wide ranging 2003 investigation of mutual funds. [5] [6]
In January 2021, Wilshire Associates was bought by CC Capital and Motive Partners. [7]
In 2021, the Financial Times started publishing 10 Wilshire indexes for individual digital assets and three multi-asset indexes. The multi-asset indices were:
Wilshire operates from four main business units.
Wilshire's Analytics Division provides the firm's investment technology products including desktop applications for investment managers. The Wilshire Quantum Series is Wilshire Analytics' family of software for investment accounting, performance measurement, performance attribution, risk management, portfolio optimization, trade order management, and other marketing and client servicing support for multi-currency portfolios.
Wilshire's Consulting division provides investment consulting services including asset allocation, investment structure, manager search and performance measurement to public and corporate pension funds, endowments, foundations, and insurance companies. Wilshire provides consulting services to more than 125 clients with total assets in excess of $1 trillion.
Among the white label investment products that Wilshire offers are:
Wilshire's Private Markets division manages in excess of $6.5 billion across a range of fund of funds vehicles dedicated to private equity and venture capital funds. Wilshire often structures its investment mandates to meet specific objectives.[ citation needed ]
An index fund is a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) designed to follow certain preset rules so that it can replicate the performance ("track") of a specified basket of underlying investments. While index providers often emphasize that they are for-profit organizations, index providers have the ability to act as "reluctant regulators" when determining which companies are suitable for an index. Those rules may include tracking prominent indices like the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average or implementation rules, such as tax-management, tracking error minimization, large block trading or patient/flexible trading strategies that allow for greater tracking error but lower market impact costs. Index funds may also have rules that screen for social and sustainable criteria.
Private equity (PE) is capital stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public. In the field of finance, private equity is offered instead to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in the management and structuring of the companies. In casual usage, "private equity" can refer to these investment firms rather than the companies that they invest in.
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.
An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a type of investment fund that is also an exchange-traded product, i.e., it is traded on stock exchanges. ETFs own financial assets such as stocks, bonds, currencies, debts, futures contracts, and/or commodities such as gold bars. Many ETFs provide some level of diversification compared to owning an individual stock.
Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) is a professional designation offered by the CAIA Association to investment professionals who complete a course of study and pass two examinations. The "alternative investments" industry is characterized as dealing with asset classes and investments other than standard equity or fixed income products. Alternative investments can include hedge funds, private equity, real assets, commodities, and structured products.
Permal Group is a global investment management firm focused on hedge funds and private equity funds products for international investors. Permal, founded in 1973, operates one of the oldest fund of hedge funds and manages approximately $22 billion in assets. Clients include sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, endowments, foundations, insurance companies, family offices, private banks and high-net-worth individuals. Its CEO is Omar Kodmani and its Chairman is Isaac R. Souede. Permal is headquartered in London, with offices in New York, Boston, Singapore, Paris, Nassau, Dubai, Hong Kong, and Beijing.
Asset allocation is the implementation of an investment strategy that attempts to balance risk versus reward by adjusting the percentage of each asset in an investment portfolio according to the investor's risk tolerance, goals and investment time frame. The focus is on the characteristics of the overall portfolio. Such a strategy contrasts with an approach that focuses on individual assets.
Robert D. Arnott is an American businessman, investor, and writer who focuses on articles about quantitative investing.
In finance, the private-equity secondary market refers to the buying and selling of pre-existing investor commitments to private-equity and other alternative investment funds. Given the absence of established trading markets for these interests, the transfer of interests in private-equity funds as well as hedge funds can be more complex and labor-intensive.
An alternative investment, also known as an alternative asset or alternative investment fund (AIF), is an investment in any asset class excluding capital stocks, bonds, and cash. The term is a relatively loose one and includes tangible assets such as precious metals, collectibles and some financial assets such as real estate, commodities, private equity, distressed securities, hedge funds, exchange funds, carbon credits, venture capital, film production, financial derivatives, cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens, and Tax Receivable Agreements. Investments in real estate, forestry and shipping are also often termed "alternative" despite the ancient use of such real assets to enhance and preserve wealth. Alternative investments are to be contrasted with traditional investments.
A private equity firm is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of startup or operating companies through a variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including leveraged buyout, venture capital, and growth capital.
PGIM, Inc. (PGIM), formerly known as Prudential Investment Management, functions as the asset management arm of Prudential Financial, an American life insurance company.
Partners Group Holding AG is a Swiss-based global private equity firm with US$149 billion in assets under management in private equity, private infrastructure, private real estate and private debt.
Jupiter Fund Management is a UK fund management group, managing equity and bond investments for private and institutional investors. The company manages assets across a wide range of international and UK based mutual funds, investment companies and institutional mandates, as well as providing wealth management services. The Company offers a variety of equity portfolios specialising in markets such as the UK, Europe, Asia and other emerging European nations, as well as multi-manager funds and specialist thematic investments such as absolute return funds, socially responsible investment funds and global financial funds. It also has a growing fixed interest franchise, with a focus on investing in high grade corporate bonds, strategic bonds and convertibles. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
In finance, a stock index, or stock market index, is an index that measures the performance of a stock market, or of a subset of a stock market. It helps investors compare current stock price levels with past prices to calculate market performance.
Investment outsourcing is the process whereby institutional investors and high-net-worth families engage a third party to manage all or a portion of their investment portfolio. This arrangement can include functions such as establishing the asset allocation, selecting investment managers, implementing portfolio decisions, providing on-going oversight, performing risk management and other areas of portfolio management.
Digital Currency Group (DCG) is a venture capital company focusing on the digital currency market. It is located in Stamford, Connecticut. The company has the subsidiaries Foundry, Genesis, Grayscale Investments, and Luno. It also formerly owned CoinDesk.
Geode Capital Management, LLC (Geode) is an American investment management firm based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Grayscale Investments is an American digital currency asset management company and subsidiary of Digital Currency Group founded in 2013 and based in Stamford, Connecticut.