Baillie Gifford is an

investment management Investment management is the professional asset management of various securities, including shareholdings, bonds, and other assets, such as real estate, to meet specified investment goals for the benefit of investors. Investors may be institut ...

firm which is wholly owned by partners, all of whom work within the firm. It was founded in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, Scotland, in 1908 and still has its headquarters in the city. It has corporate offices in New York and London.

History

Baillie & Gifford WS was formed in 1907 as a partnership between Colonel

Augustus Baillie Lieutenant Colonel Augustus Charles Baillie, DSO (25 March 1861 – 8 January 1939) was one of the founders of Baillie Gifford, one of the United Kingdom's largest investment managers. Career Brought up in Scotland, Baillie was the second son o ...

and Carlyle Gifford. Initially, it was a law firm but the financial climate of the time led to the business switching its emphasis to investment in 1908. In 1909, Baillie & Gifford created the Straits Mortgage and Trust Company Limited to lend money to rubber planters in Malaya and

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

. The Straits Mortgage and Trust Company Limited was renamed The Scottish Mortgage and Trust Limited in 1913, and this was followed by the introduction of several other

investment trust An investment trust is a form of investment fund found mostly in the United Kingdom and Japan. Investment trusts are constituted as public limited companies and are therefore closed ended since the fund managers cannot redeem or create shares. ...

s. Baillie Gifford’s clients and staff emerged relatively unscathed from the First World War, and the ‘

Roaring Twenties The Roaring Twenties, sometimes stylized as Roaring '20s, refers to the 1920s decade in music and fashion, as it happened in Western society and Western culture. It was a period of economic prosperity with a distinctive cultural edge in the U ...

’ gave Gifford many opportunities to expand the firm’s investment business. By 1927, the transition of Baillie & Gifford WS from a firm of solicitors conducting institutional investment business to a partnership managing investment trusts was completed with the creation of Baillie Gifford & Co. Baillie Gifford took over the management of Monks Investment Trust and two other related companies in 1931. The firm continued to grow steadily until the outbreak of the Second World War. Baillie died in 1939 and, the following year, Gifford was posted to New York on UK Government business. However, the firm survived the war and the troubled investment climate which followed. After a period of strong growth in the firm’s staff and client base, Gifford retired in 1965 at the age of 84. Baillie Gifford emerged from a further period of economic weakness in the UK during the 1970s with its position enhanced by growth in the amount of money it managed on behalf of clients. Assets under management continued to grow strongly during the 1990s. The firm altered the management structure when it reverted to having joint senior partners. By the time of its centenary in 2008, Baillie Gifford had offices in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

and London in addition to its headquarters in Edinburgh, and was managing more than £50 billion. Clients included five of the seven largest pension funds in the US and the firm had also attracted significant levels of business from Japan and Australia, as well as continuing to make inroads in other parts of the Far and Middle East. Baillie Gifford sponsors the

Baillie Gifford Prize The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, formerly the Samuel Johnson Prize, is an annual British book prize for the best non-fiction writing in the English language. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award. With its m ...

for non-fiction books. In 2015 Baillie Gifford opened an office in Hong Kong under the subsidiary Baillie Gifford Asia (Hong Kong) Limited 百利亞洲(香港)有限公司. The company launched the Baillie Gifford US Growth Trust in 2018 and, after Baillie Gifford secured the management of Witan Pacific Investment Trust plc in 2020, the latter trust announced that would change its name to the Baillie Gifford China Growth Trust. After a purchase on 31 March 2022, Baille Gifford become the largest shareholder of

Ginkgo Bioworks Ginkgo Bioworks is an American biotech company founded in 2008 by five scientists from MIT, headed by Jason Kelly. The company specializes in using genetic engineering to produce bacteria with industrial applications. Ginkgo Bioworks is an anal ...

References

External links

Baillie Gifford & Co Website
{{Major asset management companies 1908 establishments in Scotland Companies based in Edinburgh Financial services companies of Scotland Investment management companies of the United Kingdom Financial services companies established in 1908 British companies established in 1908

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links