Nearly two decades ago, Wellington Management had almost all of its investment staff seated in the U.S.
But the firm embarked on a global push in 2006, and now, the $1.2 trillion privately owned fund manager has 25%-30% of its 906 investment professionals in Europe and Asia. That 906 figure, as of Sept. 30, represents a 167% increase from 20 years ago.
“We're on a long-term path to keep globalizing, and we continue to do so,” said Boston-based Steve Klar, president and one of three managing partners of Wellington Management in an interview during a recent visit to Singapore.
That globalization of investment staff has followed the globalization of its client base, which is roughly 70% U.S. vs. 30% Europe and APAC. However, the manager has not set a fixed target on how much it plans to grow its international offices, particularly since working arrangements have become more flexible since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wellington CEO Jean Hynes said in an interview last year that the firm plans to be more global in the next five to 10 years.
Regarding how much Wellington plans to grow its international offices and business, it's “steady as she goes," Klar said.
"The pandemic changed the flow of where some of our people are, so we're very flexible if we want to make sure we get the right talent and attract them in the right places,” he said. “Right now, most of our investors (in Asia) are in Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo.”
There is also fluidity in the areas of coverage across each of Wellington’s Asia offices. For instance, there is an Asia equity team based in Singapore that covers not just Singapore or Southeast Asia but all of Asia. The firm also has China teams based in Hong Kong as well as pan-Asia teams.
In January, the firm opened a representative office Dubai and is always considering options in other parts of Asia such as South Korea. However, there are “no concrete plans at the moment” to open a new office in Asia, Klar said.
“Right now, we feel good with a strong local presence in Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Sydney,” he said.
Juggling time zones
As the fund manager grows globally, it is careful to keep its culture of collaboration intact. The firm’s organizational structure is built on three pillars: the investment platform, the client platform, and the infrastructure platform.
Over 60 investment teams across asset classes such as long equity, long fixed income, and some hedge fund and private market teams, along with central research, fall under the investment umbrella. This allows cross-functional exchanges across teams that "helps everyone be better (investors)," Klar said.
“Our goal is to make every investor who joins our firm a better investor than they could be anywhere else,” Klar said. “If you are an equity investor, you can tap into the fixed income knowledge of that company and the macro research, and then you can see what are the trends in privates that are impacting mega technology companies.”
Going global brought about an added challenge of fostering collaboration across geographies and time zones. “And we took on that challenge,” he said. “The (impact) of globalization is borne most heavily by our Asia-based colleagues, because they tend to be on calls at night, much more than other regions. And so we try to encourage our investors in London and Boston to really make sure that when they're engaging with a colleague in Asia, to be thoughtful about when you do the call,” he said.
Over the years, the firm also learned to be conscious of booking meetings on a Friday morning in Boston — "you don't book a meeting on a Friday night in Asia. Find a different day of the week," he said.
Another change Wellington made was to split their daily meetings into two separate sessions to accommodate Asia, U.S., and European time zones.
“We used to have one investor meeting... Now we have two meetings a day, one that connects London and Asia, and one that connects Boston and London. And once a week, our Asia-based colleagues join the global meeting at 7:30 p.m. their time in Singapore, which is 7:30 a.m. in Boston, 12:30 p.m. in London,” he said.
“Those are some of the techniques we've used. Our investors (also) are encouraged and free to travel globally to research companies, but also to work together with others. So we keep pulling all those levers to truly make it a special environment of collaboration so that our investors can have insights that they wouldn't get if they weren't part of this connected ecosystem,” he added.
