Acadian Asset Management (or simply Acadian) 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 ...

company headquartered 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 ...

with additional offices in London, Singapore and Sydney. The company is noted for its usage of Quantitative analysis and strategies when making investment decisions.

Background

The company's predecessor, Acadian Financial Research, was founded in 1977 by Gary Bergstrom. It managed investment strategies for the

State Street Corporation State Street Corporation is an American global financial services and bank holding company headquartered at One Congress Street in Boston with operations worldwide. The company is named after State Street in Boston, which was known as the "Gr ...

. In 1986, Acadian Asset Management was founded by Bergstrom, John Chisholm, Churchill Franklin, Ron Frashure to manage assets independently. The company's name comes from the region,

Acadia Acadia (; ) was a colony of New France in northeastern North America which included parts of what are now the The Maritimes, Maritime provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula and Maine to the Kennebec River. The population of Acadia included the various ...

. Acadian is an active manager and relies on fields such as

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

and

data science Data science is an interdisciplinary academic field that uses statistics, scientific computing, scientific methods, processing, scientific visualization, algorithms and systems to extract or extrapolate knowledge from potentially noisy, stru ...

to supplement its decision making process. In 1992, Acadian was acquired by United Asset Management. In 2000, Acadian became a subsidiary of Old Mutual Asset Management (OMAN) after

Old Mutual Old Mutual (officially Old Mutual Limited) is a South African investment, savings, insurance, and banking group, operating across Africa. It is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, the Namibian Stock Exchan ...

acquired United Asset Management. In 2009, Acadian laid off 8% of its workforce due to volatile market conditions related to the

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

. On October 15, 2014, OMAN held an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

on the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is the List of stock exchanges, largest stock excha ...

. In March 2017, Acadian partnered with

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

to use its

Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a varie ...

predicts

big data Big data primarily refers to data sets that are too large or complex to be dealt with by traditional data processing, data-processing application software, software. Data with many entries (rows) offer greater statistical power, while data with ...

technology to support its investment decision making process. However only several months later, it ended its partnership stating it had not found a way to turn social media data into useful signals for investments. In 2018, the direct parent of Acadian, Old Mutual Asset Management separated from Old Mutual and was rebranded to

BrightSphere Investment Group United Asset Management was an American holding company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Background The company was founded in 1980 as United Asset Management (UAM) by Norton Reamer, who previously had served as the CEO of Putnam Investme ...

. On January 1, 2025, BrightSphere Investment Group rebranded to Acadian Asset Management Inc.

References

External links

*
Listed parent company website
{{authority control 1986 establishments in Massachusetts Companies based in Boston Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Financial services companies established in 1986 Investment companies of the United States Publicly traded companies based in New York City