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In 1994, when Gary Brinson sold his firm Brinson Partners to Swiss Bank Corporation, he managed $36 billion of assets. Today, as chief investment officer at UBS Brinson, he oversees $285 billion of assets for institutional and private banking mutual fund clients.
It is little surprise that Brinson has managed such exceptional asset growth. He understood the merits of building a global investment house long before it was fashionable. Even when Brinson Partners was an independent firm, following the management buyout of the company for $100 million in 1989 from the First Chicago Corporation, the goal was to establish research analysis beyond portfolio capabilities and to have a global reach across all markets. The firm was also seeking to deliver its global capabilities to institutional clients outside of the US. By the mid-1990s, it was clear to Brinson that this goal could not be achieved alone.
"If we wanted to further this global reach, in terms of larger stations of analysis and more centres of excellence in terms of investment capability, it was clear to us that we would have to do that through some kind of affiliation. That's when we formed the business combination with Swiss Bank."
"We wanted to expand our research and analysis capability on a full global basis and the deal allowed us to do that on an accelerated schedule rather than with the limited resources we had as an independent. Secondly, it allowed us...