PanAgora Asset Management (PanAgora) is an American

investment management Investment management (sometimes referred to more generally as financial asset management) is the professional asset management of various Security (finance), securities, including shareholdings, Bond (finance), bonds, and other assets, such as r ...

firm based in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. The firm is noted for its usage of quantitative analysis in its approach to investing. It is a direct subsidiary of

Great-West Lifeco Great-West Lifeco Inc. is a Canadian insurance-centered financial holding company that operates in North America (Canada and United States), Europe and Asia through five wholly owned, regionally focused subsidiaries. Many of the companies it has ...

and its ultimate parent is

Power Financial Power Financial Corporation is a Canadian multinational company that was founded in 1984. Power Financial, a wholly owned subsidiary of Power Corporation of Canada, is an international management and holding company with interests in financia ...

Background

PanAgora was founded in 1989 by Richard A. Crowell. Crowell is considered to be one of the early pioneers of quantitative investing. When the firm was founded, Crowell made sure all of its strategies were quantitative. However, later on the firm also incorporated the use of

behavioral economics Behavioral economics is the study of the psychological (e.g. cognitive, behavioral, affective, social) factors involved in the decisions of individuals or institutions, and how these decisions deviate from those implied by traditional economi ...

to perform analysis. PanAgora originally was a 50-50

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acce ...

between

Shearson Lehman Brothers Shearson was the name of a series of investment banking and retail brokerage firms from 1902 until 1994, named for Edward ShearsonNippon Life , also known as or is the largest Japanese life insurance company by revenue. The company was founded in 1889 as the ''Nippon Life Assurance Co., Inc.'' In structure it is a mutual company. It first paid policyholder dividends in 1898. Overv ...

. In 1997,

Putnam Investments 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. Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, it has offices in London, To ...

acquired 50% of PanAgora from the shareholder now named

Lehman Brothers Lehman Brothers Inc. ( ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1850. Before filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merril ...

. On August 22, 1998, Crowell died from cancer at 57. PanAgora opened an office in London in 1990 which oversaw around $800 million in assets, mainly for European

pension fund A pension fund, also known as a superannuation fund in some countries, is any program, fund, or scheme which provides pension, retirement income. The U.S. Government's Social Security Trust Fund, which oversees $2.57 trillion in assets, is the ...

s. However, by 1998, the London office was closed due to lack of profitability. PanAgora and

DZ Bank DZ Bank AG () is the second largest bank in Germany by asset size and the central institution for around 700 cooperative banks and their around 7,200 branch offices. Within that Bundesverband der Deutschen Volksbanken und Raiffeisenbanken, w ...

formed a joint venture called DG PanAgora in 1998. PanAgora exited the joint venture in 2008 by selling its stake to

Union Investment Union Asset Management Holding AG () is the Investment banking, investment arm of the DZ Bank, DZ Bank Group and part of the cooperative financial services network. It was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in Frankfurt. Trading in open-end f ...

, the investment arm of DZ Bank. In 2004, Eric Sorensen joined PanAgora from Putnam Investments and is currently the president and CEO of the firm. In the same year, Putnam Investments acquired an additional 30% stake of PanAgora from Ippon Life increasing its holding to 80%. In 2018, Putnam Investments acquired the remaining 20% stake of PanAgora from Nippon Life.

Ownership

PanAgora was directly owned by Putnam Investments which was owned by

and ultimately owned by Power Financial. On May 31, 2023,

announced that

Franklin Templeton Investments Franklin Resources, Inc. is an American Multinational corporation, multinational investment management holding company that, together with its subsidiaries, is referred to as Franklin Templeton; it is a global investment firm founded in New York ...

would acquire Putnam Investments for $925 million. PanAgora would not be included in the acquisition and would remain under Great-West Lifeco. The term

Risk parity Risk parity (or risk premia parity) is an approach to investment management which focuses on allocation of risk, usually defined as volatility, rather than allocation of capital. The risk parity approach asserts that when asset allocations are ad ...

was coined by Edward Qian in a paper written in 2004. Qian is currently Chief investment officer of Multi Asset Investments at PanAgora.

References

External links

* {{authority control 1989 establishments in Massachusetts Companies based in Boston Financial services companies established in 1989 Investment companies of the United States Power Corporation of Canada