Boston Partners 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 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 ...

. The firm focuses on value investing in

equities Stocks (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporation in proportion t ...

Background

Boston Partners traces its origins to The Boston Company, a firm founded in 1865 that provided custodial and trust services to

mutual fund A mutual fund is an investment fund that pools money from many investors to purchase Security (finance), securities. The term is typically used in the United States, Canada, and India, while similar structures across the globe include the SICAV in ...

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 and charity organizations. In 1981, it was acquired by Shearson under

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for $50 million. In 1993, Shearson sold The Boston Company to

Mellon Bank 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 manage ...

(Mellon) for $1.5 billion which was considered a hefty price and was not well received by Mellon shareholders. Boston Company Asset Management (BCAM), the asset management unit of The Boston Company was stated to have friction with Mellon for years. BCAM managers complained that Mellon was reducing their autonomy. At one point, Mellon had tried to dismiss two BCAM managers for

securities lending In finance, securities lending or stock lending refers to the lending of securities by one party to another. The terms of the loan will be governed by a "Securities Lending Agreement", which requires that the borrower provides the lender with co ...

losses. Desmond Heathwood, the chairman and CEO of BCAM attempted to lead a

management buyout A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or individual. Management- and/or leveraged buyouts became noted phenomena of 19 ...

from Mellon for $150 million but was unsuccessful. In April 1995, Heathwood and several other BCAM executives left BCAM to form their own firm, Boston Partners. At the time, Boston Partners had 33 employees who were almost all previously part of BCAM's equity team. On April 25, Boston Partners moved into its office at

One Financial Center One Financial Center is a modern skyscraper adjacent to Dewey Square in the Financial District of Boston, Massachusetts. Built in 1983 by Rose Associates, it is Boston's 11th-tallest building, standing tall, and housing 46 floors. An unusu ...

and on May 8, started managing assets for clients. 90% of its clients were former BCAM clients. A legal battle between BCAM and Boston Partners ensued with BCAM suing five of Boston Partners' founders claiming a breach of

fiduciary duty A fiduciary is a person who holds a legal or ethical relationship of trust with one or more other parties (legal person or group of persons). Typically, a fiduciary prudently takes care of money or other assets for another person. One party, fo ...

and misappropriation of trade secrets. In December that year, both parties settled with Boston Partners making an undisclosed payment to BCAM. In addition Boston Partners was preventing from touting the performance of its managers back when they were at BCAM. Both parties were barred from talking about the details of the case. In September 2002, Robeco acquired 60% of shares in Boston Partners. In 2003, Robeco acquired the remaining 40% of shares making Boston Partners wholly-owned. In February 2013,

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acquired Robeco making it the ultimate parent company of Boston Partners. Boston Partners' main strategy is value investing in equities. It relies on metrics such as P/E ratio and

P/B ratio The price-to-book ratio, or P/B ratio, (also PBR) is a financial ratio used to compare a company's current market value to its book value (where ''book value'' is the value of all assets minus liabilities owned by a company). The calculation can be ...

Alleged disability discrimination

In April 2022, Martin MacDonnell, a

portfolio manager A portfolio manager (PM) is a professional responsible for making investment decisions and carrying out investment activities on behalf of vested individuals or institutions. Clients invest their money into the PM's investment policy for future gr ...

at Boston Partners sued the firm claiming it had engaged in disability discrimination since late 2018. He stated after the 2013

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, he was diagnosed with

PTSD Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that develops from experiencing a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, warfare and its associated traumas, natural disaster, traffic collision, ...

by the

Massachusetts General Hospital Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General or MGH) is a teaching hospital located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the original and largest clinical education and research facility of Harvard Medical School/Harvar ...

which had affected his executive functioning such as

working memory Working memory is a cognitive system with a limited capacity that can Memory, hold information temporarily. It is important for reasoning and the guidance of decision-making and behavior. Working memory is often used synonymously with short-term m ...

. MacDonnell's attorneys state between late 2018 and 2020, the firm did not inform him restructurings or potential job opening while making him take on additional duties in understaffed roles. Eventually on January 4, 2021, MacDonnell had a

panic attack Panic attacks are sudden periods of intense fear and Comfort, discomfort that may include palpitations, otherwise defined as a Tachycardia, rapid, Arrhythmia, irregular Heart rate, heartbeat, Hyperhidrosis, sweating, chest pain or discomfort, s ...

and had to go to the

emergency room An emergency department (ED), also known as an accident and emergency department (A&E), emergency room (ER), emergency ward (EW) or casualty department, is a medical treatment facility specializing in emergency medicine, the acute care of pat ...

. A few weeks later, MacDonnell was informed he was demoted while on personal leave. In the summer that year, MacDonnell tried to return to work but the firm stated he couldn't. In July that year, the firm stopped paying MacDonnell and informed him that is position was that of a quantitative analyst, a role he had not held in over 14 years. In addition the lawsuit stated Joseph Feeny, the firm's CEO wrote an offensive email over its

short position In finance, being short in an asset means investing in such a way that the investor will profit if the market value of the asset falls. This is the opposite of the more common long position, where the investor will profit if the market value ...

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which mocked mental health disabilities and used the term "retard".

References

External links

* {{authority control 1995 establishments in Massachusetts Companies based in Boston Financial services companies established in 1995 Investment companies of the United States Asset management companies