Interview: What is Asset Management?

Leading asset management firm Insight Investment tells you all about their exciting industry.

What is asset management and how does it differ from investment banking?

Asset management firms offer their clients a wide range of traditional and alternative investments that aim to grow their clients’ portfolio. In the case of active management, investment professionals analyse, select and monitor investments on behalf of their clients, as they seek to meet their clients’ investment objectives, reflecting their risk tolerance and time horizons. 

Asset management firms and investment banks are typically differentiated as the “buy side” and the “sell side”. Asset managers make investment decisions, allocating money on behalf of their clients to securities such as equities and bonds in order to try and generate a return. The sell side provides access to securities and offers investment services to facilitate this. While investment bankers also serve high net worth clients and institutions, activity is geared more towards corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, equity and bond issuance and trading.

Where does Insight fit into this? 

Insight Investment was founded in 2002 and has 800 employees worldwide across offices in the UK, Europe, North America, Australia and Asia. We are at the forefront of developing new ways of investing, providing institutional investors with access to innovative investment strategies, coupled with robust risk management techniques. We typically deal with large institutions that require sophisticated solutions to address a complex range of investment needs. Our business is built on the advocacy of these clients.

We were a pioneer in recognising the unrewarded nature of currency risk and the importance of liabilities. Liability driven investment has been a significant contributor to protecting funding levels for pension funds over the past decade. As a specialist asset manager, we aim to deliver consistent and repeatable performance by focusing on areas where we believe we can offer an investment edge, including liability driven investment, fixed income, cash management, absolute return, multi-asset, specialist equities and real assets.

Insight is team-based with a strong ownership culture. We believe this creates a true alignment between meeting the goals of clients, our business objectives and individual incentives. At the heart of our investment philosophy is a determination to offer clients innovative solutions that deliver mutually agreed outcomes.

We look for the brightest candidates that have the drive and ambition to succeed in all areas of our business.

View Insight Investment's employer page.