Brinson Partners (later known as UBS Brinson) was an asset management firm focused on providing access for U.S. institutions to global markets. The firm was founded by noted investor

Gary P. Brinson Gary P. Brinson is a former investor and money manager. He is the founder of Brinson Partners a Chicago-based asset management firm acquired in 1994 by Swiss Bank Corporation, the predecessor of UBS. Prior to retiring in 2000, Brinson would run th ...

in the 1980s and established as an independent firm in 1989. Brinson was acquired by

Swiss Bank Corporation Swiss Bank Corporation was a Swiss investment bank and financial services company located in Switzerland. Prior to its merger, the bank was the third largest in Switzerland with over CHF300 billion of assets and CHF11.7 billion of equ ...

in 1994 and became the core of the Swiss bank's asset management business in the U.S. The firm was headquartered in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and

's successor,

UBS UBS Group AG is a multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. Co-headquartered in the cities of Zürich and Basel, it maintains a presence in all major financial centres ...

still maintains a significant asset management business there with former executives of Brinson Partners.

History

Early history at First Chicago

joined the trust department of

First National Bank of Chicago First Chicago Bank was a Chicago-based retail and commercial bank tracing its roots to 1863. Over the years, the bank operated under several names including The First National Bank of Chicago and First Chicago NBD (following its 1995 merger with ...

as chief investment officer in 1979. By 1981, Brinson had assembled the team that would become First Chicago Advisors and later Brinson Partners. First Chicago Advisors became a separate money management company in 1983. Through the 1980s, Brinson established himself as a pioneer in the development of the theory of

asset allocation 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 tim ...

Gary P. Brinson, L. Randolph Hood, and Gilbert L. Beebower, ''Determinants of Portfolio Performance'', The Financial Analysts Journal, July/August 1986. ''Determinants of Portfolio Performance II: An Update'', The Financial Analysts Journal, 47, 3 (1991) Brinson pushed for allocation across stocks, bonds, cash, real estate, venture capital and other alternative asset classes using simple cost effective investment strategies. This would largely become

conventional wisdom The conventional wisdom or received opinion is the body of ideas or explanations generally accepted by the public and/or by experts in a field. In religion, this is known as orthodoxy. Etymology The term is often credited to the economist John K ...

among money managers in the 1990s.

Independence and acquisition

In 1989, Gary Brinson led a US$100 million

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 buyout became noted phenomena of 1 ...

of his firm from First Chicago Corporation, acquiring approximately 75% of the company with a large group of partners and investors. Over the next five years built up the firm to approximately US$36 billion of assets under management. Brinson focused on providing access for U.S. institutions to global markets. The firm, which also managed a series of mutual funds, had emerged as one of largest managers of pension plans in the U.S.Merger in Switzerland Creates a Star in Chicago
New York Times, December 14, 1997 In 1994,

was in the midst of a series of acquisitions that included

O'Connor & Associates O'Connor & Associates was a Chicago-based options trading firm, with particular emphasis on financial derivatives. The firm was acquired by Swiss Bank Corporation (later merged with Union Bank of Switzerland to form UBS). O'Connor was headquartere ...

, S.G. Warburg & Co., Dillon Read & Co. and culminated in the bank's merger with the Union Bank of Swtizerland in 1998. Swiss Bank announced the acquisition of Brinson Partners and brought in Brinson to run the bank's asset management unit.SBC Warburg Company History
Funding Universe, Retrieved August 10, 2010

paid US$750 million to acquire Brinson Partners, resulting in a profit to Brinson and his partners of US$460 million on the sale of their 75% stake in the company. Following the acquisition of Brinson Partners, Gary Brinson ran Swiss Bank's asset management business and after the merger with UBS, Brinson was named chief investment officer of UBS Asset Management.

UBS Asset Management

Since the merger of UBS and SBC in 1998, UBS has been among the largest asset management firms in the world. The merger and subsequent restructuring resulted in the combination of three major asset management operations: UBS Asset Management, Phillips & Drew (owned by

Union Bank of Switzerland Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) was a Swiss Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company located in Switzerland. The bank, which at the time was the second largest bank in Switzerland, merged with Swiss Bank Corporation in ...

) and Brinson Partners (owned by

). The investment teams were merged in 2000 and in 2002 the brands were consolidated as UBS Asset Management. How Phillips & Drew pioneered meritocracy
UBS website As of 2014, UBS Asset Management was responsible for CHF 664 billion of invested assets across its various

asset class In finance, an asset class is a group of financial instruments that have similar financial characteristics and behave similarly in the marketplace. We can often break these instruments into those having to do with real assets and those having ...

es and investment strategies. With around 3,800 employees in 24 countries, UBS Asset Management is largest

mutual fund A mutual fund is a professionally managed investment fund that pools money from many investors to purchase securities. The term is typically used in the United States, Canada, and India, while similar structures across the globe include the SICAV i ...

manager in Switzerland and one of the largest manager of

fund of hedge funds A "fund of funds" (FOF) is an investment strategy of holding a portfolio of other investment funds rather than investing directly in stocks, bonds or other securities. This type of investing is often referred to as multi-manager investment. A f ...

and real estate investment managers in the world. It has major offices in Chicago, Frankfurt, Hartford, Hong Kong, London, New York, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Zurich.

References

External links

The Brinson Foundation
- non-profit organization supporting educational, public health and scientific research programs {{UBS AG UBS Investment management companies of the United States Financial services companies established in 1989 Companies based in Chicago Defunct financial services companies of the United States Financial services companies disestablished in 1994