Investment managementInvestment management (sometimes referred to more generally as asset 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 institutions, such as insurance companies, pension funds, corporations, charities, educational establishments, or private investors, either directly via investment contracts/mandates or via collective investment schemes like mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, or REITs.
Asset managementAsset management is a systematic approach to the governance and realization of all value for which a group or entity is responsible. It may apply both to tangible assets (physical objects such as complex process or manufacturing plants, infrastructure, buildings or equipment) and to intangible assets (such as intellectual property, goodwill or financial assets). Asset management is a systematic process of developing, operating, maintaining, upgrading, and disposing of assets in the most cost-effective manner (including all costs, risks, and performance attributes).
Passive managementPassive management (also called passive investing) is an investing strategy that tracks a market-weighted index or portfolio. Passive management is most common on the equity market, where index funds track a stock market index, but it is becoming more common in other investment types, including bonds, commodities and hedge funds. The most popular method is to mimic the performance of an externally specified index by buying an index fund.
Mutual fundA mutual fund is an investment fund that pools money from many investors to purchase securities. The term is typically used in the United States, Canada, and India, while similar structures across the globe include the SICAV in Europe ('investment company with variable capital') and open-ended investment company (OEIC) in the UK. Mutual funds are often classified by their principal investments: money market funds, bond or fixed income funds, stock or equity funds, or hybrid funds.
Hedge fundA hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as short selling, leverage, and derivatives. Financial regulators generally restrict hedge fund marketing to institutional investors, high net worth individuals, and accredited investors. Hedge funds are considered alternative investments.
Fund administrationFund administration is the name given to the execution of back-office activities including fund accounting, financial reporting, net asset value calculation, capital calls, distributions, investor communications and other functions carried out in support of an investment fund, which may take the form of a traditional mutual fund, a hedge fund, a private equity fund, a venture capital fund, a pension fund, a unit trust, or other pooled investment vehicle.
Fund of fundsA "fund of funds" (FOF) is an investment strategy of holding a portfolio of other investment funds rather than investing directly in stocks, bonds or other securities. This type of investing is often referred to as multi-manager investment. A fund of funds may be "fettered", meaning that it invests only in funds managed by the same investment company, or "unfettered", meaning that it can invest in external funds run by other managers.
Financial managementFinancial management is the business function concerned with profitability, expenses, cash and credit, so that the "organization may have the means to carry out its objective as satisfactorily as possible;" the latter often defined as maximizing the value of the firm for stockholders. The discipline is then tasked with the "efficient acquisition and deployment" of both short- and long-term financial resources, to ensure the objectives of the enterprise are achieved.
Financial risk managementFinancial risk management is the practice of protecting economic value in a firm by managing exposure to financial risk - principally operational risk, credit risk and market risk, with more specific variants as listed aside. As for risk management more generally, financial risk management requires identifying the sources of risk, measuring these, and crafting plans to address them. See for an overview. Financial risk management as a "science" can be said to have been born with modern portfolio theory, particularly as initiated by Professor Harry Markowitz in 1952 with his article, "Portfolio Selection"; see .
