PanAgora Asset Management (PanAgora) is an American

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 based in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. The firm is noted for its usage of quantitative analysis in its approach to investing. It is a direct subsidiary of

Putnam Investments Putnam Investments is a privately owned investment management firm founded in 1937 by George Putnam, who established one of the first balanced mutual funds, The George Putnam Fund of Boston. As one of the oldest mutual fund complexes in the Unite ...

and its ultimate parent is

Power Financial Power Financial Corporation is a Canadian multinational company that was founded in 1984. Power Financial, a wholly owned subsidiary of Power Corporation of Canada, is an international management and holding company with interests in financial ...

Background

PanAgora was founded in 1989 by Richard A. Crowell. Crowell is considered to be one of the early pioneers of quantitative investing. When the firm was founded, Crowell made sure all of its strategies were quantitative. However later on the firm also incorporated the use of

behavioral economics Behavioral economics studies the effects of psychological, cognitive, emotional, cultural and social factors on the decisions of individuals or institutions, such as how those decisions vary from those implied by classical economic theory. ...

to perform analysis. PanAgora originally was a 50-50

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

between

Shearson Lehman Brothers Shearson was the name of a series of investment banking and retail brokerage firms from 1902 until 1994, named for Edward ShearsonNippon Life , also known as or is the largest Japanese life insurance company by revenue. The company was founded in 1889 as the ''Nippon Life Assurance Co., Inc.'' In structure it is a mutual company. It first paid policyholder dividends in 1898. Over ...

. In 1997, Putnam Investments acquired 50% of PanAgora from the shareholder now named

Lehman Brothers Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ( ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1847. Before Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Gol ...

. On August 22, 1998, Crowell died from cancer at 57. PanAgora opened an office in London in 1990 which oversaw around $800 million in assets, mainly for European

pension funds A pension fund, also known as a superannuation fund in some countries, is any plan, fund, or scheme which provides retirement income. Pension funds typically have large amounts of money to invest and are the major investors in listed and priva ...

. However by 1998, the London office was closed due to lack of profitability. PanAgora and

DZ Bank DZ Bank AG () is the second largest bank in Germany by asset size and the central institution for around 800 cooperative banks and their around 8,500 branch offices. Within the German Cooperative Financial Group, which is one of Germany's lar ...

formed a joint venture called DG PanAgora in 1998. PanAgora exited the joint venture in 2008 by selling its stake to

Union Investment Union Investment (; formal name Union Asset Management Holding AG) is the investment arm of the DZ Bank Group and part of the cooperative financial services network. It was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in Frankfurt. Trading in open-en ...

, the investment arm of DZ Bank. In 2004, Eric Sorensen joined PanAgora from Putnam Investments and is currently the president and CEO of the firm. In the same year, Putnam Investments acquired an additional 30% stake of PanAgora from Ippon Life increasing its holding to 80%. In 2018, Putnam Investments acquired the remaining 20% stake of PanAgora from Nippon Life. PanAgora is directly owned by Putnam Investments which is owned by

Great-West Lifeco Great-West Lifeco Inc. is a Canadian insurance-centered financial holding company that operates in North America (Canada and United States), Europe and Asia through five wholly owned, regionally focused subsidiaries. Many of the companies it has ...

and ultimately owned by Power Financial. The term

Risk Parity Risk parity (or risk premia parity) is an approach to investment management which focuses on allocation of risk, usually defined as volatility, rather than allocation of capital. The risk parity approach asserts that when asset allocations are ad ...

was coined by Edward Qian in a paper written in 2004. Qian is currently

Chief Investment Officer The chief investment officer (CIO) is a job title for the board level head of investments within an organization. The CIO's purpose is to understand, manage, and monitor their organization's portfolio of assets, devise strategies for growth, act as ...

of Multi Asset Investments at PanAgora.

References

External links

* {{authority control 1989 establishments in Massachusetts Companies based in Boston Financial services companies established in 1989 Investment companies of the United States