HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Lee Thomas Kranefuss (born September 27, 1961) is an American businessman, investment manager, corporate adviser, and entrepreneur. Kranefuss started and ran the
iShares iShares is a collection of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) managed by BlackRock, which acquired the brand and business from Barclays in 2009. The first iShares ETFs were known as World Equity Benchmark Shares (WEBS) but have since been rebranded ...
series of
exchange-traded fund An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a type of investment fund and exchange-traded product, i.e. they are traded on stock exchanges. ETFs are similar in many ways to mutual funds, except that ETFs are bought and sold from other owners throughout the ...
s (ETFs) for
Barclays Global Investors BlackRock, Inc. is an American multi-national investment company based in New York City. Founded in 1988, initially as a risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager, with trill ...
(BGI), the asset management arm of Britain's
Barclays Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services. Barclays traces ...
Bank. BGI was acquired by
BlackRock BlackRock, Inc. is an American Multinational corporation, multi-national investment company based in New York City. Founded in 1988, initially as a Enterprise risk management, risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackR ...
in December 2009. Kranefuss saw the opportunity to commercialize and grow the extant but immaterial ETF industry that had developed by the time iShares was launched in 2000, and is credited with driving ETFs from a novelty product to a mainstream investment choice through aggressive education and promotion of the iShares line. By the end of 2009, global ETF assets exceeded a trillion dollars globally, with nearly half the total in the iShares funds. In 2012, Kranefuss associated with private equity firm
Warburg Pincus Warburg Pincus LLC is a global private equity firm, headquartered in New York, with offices in the United States, Europe, Brazil, China, Southeast Asia and India. Warburg has been a private equity investor since 1966. The firm currently has over ...
. Subsequently, in 2014, acquiring over 50% of Source ETFs, a leading European ETF provider. The firm was successfully sold to Invesco in 2017 In 2016, Kranefuss and associates
Vinay Nair Vinay Nair is a serial entrepreneur (55ip, TIFIN, Magnifi, Clout, Positivly, Louise) and academic. He is involved as an advisor or board member in several companies in financial services, across investment management, venture capital and fintech ...
and Bruce Lavine (former head of iShares Europe and then COO and President of
Wisdom Tree Wisdom Tree, Inc. is an American developer of Christian video games. Originally founded in 1988 as Color Dreams, one of the first companies to work around Nintendo's lockout chip technology for the Nintendo Entertainment System, the company cha ...
) announced the formation of 55 Capital Partners. Kranefuss has since left his daily and strategic oversight roles with that firm. In mid-2017, Kranefuss announced he was working on a disruptive web-based application to enable better investment planning. The software is aimed at both individual investors as well as professional advisors. His intent is to build a very intuitive and experiential tools for investment planning, leveraging current machine-learning, classification, and other techniques.


Career

In 1997 Kranefuss joined
Barclays Global Investors BlackRock, Inc. is an American multi-national investment company based in New York City. Founded in 1988, initially as a risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager, with trill ...
(BGI), the company that invented
index fund An index fund (also index tracker) is a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) designed to follow certain preset rules so that the fund can a specified basket of underlying investments.Reasonable Investor(s), Boston University Law Review, avail ...
s. BGI was then the world's largest manager of institutional assets. Kranefuss joined as Director of Strategy & Corporate Development. In that role Kranefuss conceived of the plan for the
iShares iShares is a collection of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) managed by BlackRock, which acquired the brand and business from Barclays in 2009. The first iShares ETFs were known as World Equity Benchmark Shares (WEBS) but have since been rebranded ...
business. Believing that an aggressive education and sales program would be needed to explain the benefits of
exchange-traded fund An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a type of investment fund and exchange-traded product, i.e. they are traded on stock exchanges. ETFs are similar in many ways to mutual funds, except that ETFs are bought and sold from other owners throughout the ...
s (ETFs) to investors,
iShares iShares is a collection of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) managed by BlackRock, which acquired the brand and business from Barclays in 2009. The first iShares ETFs were known as World Equity Benchmark Shares (WEBS) but have since been rebranded ...
was launched in 2000 with an intensive marketing effort behind the initial 40 new
iShares iShares is a collection of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) managed by BlackRock, which acquired the brand and business from Barclays in 2009. The first iShares ETFs were known as World Equity Benchmark Shares (WEBS) but have since been rebranded ...
funds to be launched in the U.S. — more than doubling the number of products then available in the market. In 2005, after the departure of co-CEO Andrew Skirton, Kranefuss was promoted to the Executive Committee of BGI, and also put in charge of BGI's Institutional Indexing, Cash Management, Securities Lending, and related businesses – collectively over one trillion dollars in assets, more than 75% of BGI's assets under management, and 42% of the company's profits. By the end of 2007 iShares had surpassed $400B in global assets, with Kranefuss overseeing nearly 80% of BGI's assets and over 60% of BGI's profits.


iShares sale by Barclays

In April 2009, it was reported that Barclays had signed a deal to sell iShares to the European
private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a ty ...
firm
CVC Capital Partners CVC Capital Partners is a Luxembourg-based French private equity and investment advisory firm with approximately US$133 billion of assets under management and approximately €157 billion in secured commitments since inception across American, E ...
for $4.4B. Kranefuss announced at the time he would be stepping away from daily management duties to assume the title of Vice Chairman of iShares, focusing on the transition process. However, during a go-shop period in the CVC contract, Barclays reportedly received significant interest to buy all of BGI – including iShares – by numerous parties. Subsequently, New York money manager
BlackRock BlackRock, Inc. is an American Multinational corporation, multi-national investment company based in New York City. Founded in 1988, initially as a Enterprise risk management, risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackR ...
out-bid all others and purchased BGI, closing the deal in late in the year. Though having grown iShares by extensive distribution over the decade — into a global fund family with over $500B in assets, and the 4th largest fund family in the U.S. — it was reported in early 2010 that Kranefuss (on reportedly good terms with
BlackRock BlackRock, Inc. is an American Multinational corporation, multi-national investment company based in New York City. Founded in 1988, initially as a Enterprise risk management, risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackR ...
senior management) would continue only through an integration period. He left
BlackRock BlackRock, Inc. is an American Multinational corporation, multi-national investment company based in New York City. Founded in 1988, initially as a Enterprise risk management, risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackR ...
at the end of April 2010.


Current activities

Kranefuss is currently focused on corporate advisory and principal investing in the asset management industry. In September 2011, he and former iShares colleague Rory Tobin announced the formation of ETF Opportunity Partners LLP, with an eye to acquiring ETF businesses (initially in Europe). He and Tobin penned an opinion piece in the ''Financial Times'' explaining their perspective the same month. In December 2012,
Warburg Pincus Warburg Pincus LLC is a global private equity firm, headquartered in New York, with offices in the United States, Europe, Brazil, China, Southeast Asia and India. Warburg has been a private equity investor since 1966. The firm currently has over ...
, a global private equity firm backed by more than $30B in capital focused on
growth investing Growth investing is a style of investment strategy focused on capital appreciation. Those who follow this style, known as ''growth investors'', invest in companies that exhibit signs of above-average growth, even if the share price appears expens ...
, announced the appointment of Kranefuss as an Executive-in-Residence to identify and evaluate investment opportunities in the areas of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), index investing and asset management, particularly in Europe, Asia and Latin America. At the time, Kranefuss commented "The time is ripe to create a large-scale, global, and independent ETF provider that will provide the truly attractive and innovative product – and the support behind it – that ETF investors demand." In 2014, Kranefuss and Warburg Pincus announced they had acquire 51% of the equity of Source, an ETF provider originally started by a consortium of investment banks including
Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, H ...
,
Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...
,
JP Morgan JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the wo ...
,
Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank w ...
, and Nomura. The founding investment banks were reported to have remained as minority shareholder in Source, backing Kranefuss and Warburg Pincus. In 2017, Warburg Pincus and the founding shareholders announced they were selling Source. In late 2017 Invesco emerged as the buyer of Source. Kranefuss was also a seed investor in the quantitative money management company Ada Investment Management, a hedge fund managed by
Vinay Nair Vinay Nair is a serial entrepreneur (55ip, TIFIN, Magnifi, Clout, Positivly, Louise) and academic. He is involved as an advisor or board member in several companies in financial services, across investment management, venture capital and fintech ...
. In May 2016, Kranefuss and Nair co-founded a new firm to provide management of portfolios entirely of ETFs, 55 Capital Partners. The hired Bruce Lavine – a key early employee of iShares who went on to be President and COO of
Wisdom Tree Wisdom Tree, Inc. is an American developer of Christian video games. Originally founded in 1988 as Color Dreams, one of the first companies to work around Nintendo's lockout chip technology for the Nintendo Entertainment System, the company cha ...
, a publicly listed ETF provider – as CEO of the new firm. According to their web site press reports and interviews, they have ported investment strategies that implement core portfolios, typically used by large institutions, such that they can be implemented entirely with ETFs. Since that time the company has shifted direction to a more institutional approach. While not involved in daily operations, Kranefuss remains an investor in the current firm, 55 Institutional. In addition, Kranefuss has pursued an interest in corporate sustainability, and has invested in that area. He appeared at the 2010 Fortune Brainstorm Green conference to talk about that.


Affiliations

Kranefuss’ past and present affiliations include: *
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
– Parker Center for Investment Research * Ada Investments *
Investment Company Institute The Investment Company Institute (ICI) is a global association of regulated funds, including mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, closed-end funds and unit investment trusts in the United States, and similar funds offered to investors in jurisd ...
– Former member, Board of Governors *
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...


Personal life

Kranefuss was born in
Endicott, New York Endicott is a village in Broome County, New York, United States. The population was 13,392 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Binghamton Metropolitan Statistical Area. The village is named after Henry B. Endicott, a founding member of the En ...
. He currently divides his time between the
San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
in
Marin County Marin County is a county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat and largest city is San Rafael. Marin County is acros ...
and
Sun Valley, Idaho Sun Valley is a resort city in the western United States, in Blaine County, Idaho, adjacent to the city of Ketchum in the Wood River valley. The population was 1406 at the 2010 census, down from 1427 in 2000.1961 births Living people 21st-century American businesspeople Cornell University alumni