积极的管理困境被诅咒

When Steve Peacher, then chief investment officer of Canadian insurance company Sun Life Assurance Co.’s $100 billion general account, went to the company’s board with a proposal to build an asset management company in 2012, he was confident — in spite of the odds stacked against him.

经过四十年的相当容易的成长和缓解利润率，大多数资产管理人员当时正在经历今天持续存在的第一个存在的中期危机的痛苦。大多数人仍在努力重新发明自己在极其自由的指数基金和波罗顾问的激烈竞争中，投资者对高费用的愤怒和缺乏保护金融危机的保护，以及监管机构渴望在曾经的自由行动业务中制定更多规则。。更重要的是，Sun Life已经拥有美国的MFS投资管理，这是一个恰好做得很好的积极经理。为什么诱惑与第二次企业命运？

但是，在2009年加入Sun Life之前，哥伦比亚管理层和Putnam投资的高收益集团运行固定收入的蜜蜂，认为并非所有资产管理领域都面临着昏暗的未来。投资者希望房地产和私人债务交易等替代品，而企业养老金计划正在实施责任驱动的投资策略，以中和利率风险和对冲其负债。对蜜蜂来说，只是这两个重叠的行业 - 哪个没有提供的MFS - 正是太阳生活整天为其普遍的账户。

But the clincher for the board was the perfect pitch it could use to woo clients if it had a third-party asset management business that offered strategies it also used itself. Sun Life would be investing right alongside clients, taking the same risks and getting the same rewards. Pension funds, endowments, and other institutions were increasingly realizing that if they were in the same pool with their managers’ own money, there was a lot less incentive for things to go off the rails. “Co-investments were the cornerstone,” says Peacher.

The board said yes. Sun Life Investment Management, as it is now known, initially seeded a number of new products, including putting a $650 million portfolio of commercial mortgages, private fixed income, and real estate into a fund, and targeted Canadian municipal and corporate plans that were familiar with the Sun Life name. But if parent Sun Life was going to build a new asset manager, it wanted it to make a significant difference to its earnings, which amounted to about C$2 billion annually.

阳光生命投资管理需要闯入美国。要这样做。“美国是如此竞争力，拥有这么多的资产经理，我们的名字在各州并不闻名，”潘先生说，他现在总统苗条。“我们需要收购。”

In 2015 the company made three: Ryan Labs, a $5 billion boutique that focuses on core fixed-income and liability-driven investing and is in the top decile of performance compared with its peers; Prime Advisors, a manager of customized fixed-income portfolios for midsize insurance companies; and Bentall Kennedy, a Toronto-based real estate investment manager that invests in Canada and the U.S. Bentall Kennedy was owned by management and two pension funds, including California Public Employees’ Retirement System. But the company’s management team was looking for a new owner so it could expand beyond the pension funds and offer a more diversified product lineup.

太阳生活认为三个“咬大小”的收购有足够的空间来运行。该公司可以为Prime的保险客户提供私人信贷等策略;与此同时，一旦小企业访问阳光生命的资源，它就可以将Ryan Labs 5-或六倍变得如此。

Randy Brown，现在的Cio苗条和Sun Life的总体账户表示，他加入了保险公司作为普通账户的CIO，以便他也可以帮助蜜蜂建立第三方资产管理业务。

“My day job was running the general account, then Steve would get my afternoons, nights, and weekends,” laughs Brown, who was hired by mortgage-backed securities inventor Lew Ranieri to work at Salomon Brothers in the late 1980s. Brown went on to run liability-type investments, particularly for insurance clients, for BlackRock, and later for Deutsche Asset Management.

布朗表示，苗条在某些客户的变革期间拥有一个独特的机会，在一段时间内建立资产管理业务。“保险公司和养老基金正在融合，”他说。保险公司长期以来一直在投资组合，重点是将其资产与负债匹配，以降低风险。养老基金历史上没有使用这种框架，而是投资股票和其他风险资产。但现在两者都在转移：保险公司需要增加他们的更高返回投资，鉴于他们赚取传统固定收入的低利率，企业养老金需要降低风险。

资产管理业务的收购没有良好工作的伟大历史。Bentall肯尼迪美国总裁艾米的价格表示，管理团队正在寻找一个父母，这将允许它保持相当自主，同时还可以帮助它像分销一样的东西。他们认为独立，可以帮助交易工作。价格说她最大的惊喜自交易是缺乏员工和客户 - 离境。

“当所有权发生变化时，你会立即掌握一个软木表，”价格说。卡波斯仍然是公司最大的客户之一，是支持性的，但持怀疑态度。养老金告诉该资产经理，“行业在收购方面没有伟大的记录。我们会给你怀疑的好处，但如果有任何变化，我们会出现问题。“

In the end, everything clicked. “It came down to the fact that we got the best of both worlds. We run the business as we always have, yet with more resources and strength behind us,” Price says. As part of SLIM, Bentall Kennedy is now considering how to expand from core real estate to higher-risk and higher-returning products. The firm is now in the market with a small real estate fund targeting investments in cities with highly educated populations such as Boston; Sun Life has committed $50 million in capital to this fund.

Although Sun Life isn’t competing in some of the harder-hit spots of asset management, it’s still subject to some of the same headwinds.

“随着其他资产管理者面临成本和费用压缩的其他资产管理人员，我们在同一个池中，”布朗说。“但无论如何，我需要投资我的资产负债表。因此，我采取边际客户的边际成本并不高。“