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Acadian Asset Management is a Boston- and Singapore-based investment management firm specializing in active global and international equity strategies. We invest over C$3 billion on behalf of major pension funds, endowments, foundations and other institutions based in the U.S. and abroad.

Acadian believes that a quantitative approach is essential to effectively evaluate the thousands of diverse opportunities available to the global equity investor. We find that traditional approaches are often subjective, narrowly focused and slow to react to new information. Our disciplined, risk-controlled approach is designed to transcend these shortcomings and evaluate the most information in the most intelligent manner possible. We believe our clients benefit from some of the most sophisticated techniques available for creating winning performance.

Company Background
Acadian employs analytical models for active stock selection as well as sector/country and currency valuation, using a proprietary database covering over 20,000 securities in more than 40 equity markets worldwide. Acadian's extensive research capabilities are often used to develop customized investment management strategies for our clients.

Acadian was founded in 1977, and starting in 1978, Acadian designed, developed and implemented an international index-matching strategy and an active country selection strategy for the State Street Bank and Trust Company. In 1987, Acadian ended its relationship with State Street and began to manage institutional assets directly. Over the last decade and more, the firm has served some of the world's largest and most sophisticated fund sponsors. In 1992, Acadian became an affiliate of Boston-based United Asset Management (UAM). UAM in turn was acquired in October 2000 by London-based Old Mutual PLC, a publicly traded international financial services group. In 1999, Acadian opened an office in Singapore to serve clients in the Asia-Pacific region. In Canada, Acadian now works closely with Integra Capital Management Corporation, which is also an Old Mutual firm.

Investment Philosophy: Enhanced Value
Acadian's investment philosophy centers around the belief that markets are inefficient and many stocks are undervalued relative to their long-term prospects. We believe, however, that stocks should be evaluated not simply by how cheap they look on simplistic measures (such as price/book or price/earnings) but that additional factors should be used to target attractively valued companies that also have positive earnings and price characteristics.

Our work has shown that there is no "one size fits all" process that works well in all markets. The most effective stock selection factors are not the same in France as they are in the U.K. or Japan. Successful investing requires a sophisticated process that is tailored to each market’s unique character.

For these reasons, we call our approach Enhanced Value Investing. We employ a disciplined, objective process using multi-factor frameworks that are customized market-by-market. Our goal is to target undervalued companies that have strong prospects for future outperformance. We then employ sophisticated portfolio construction software to create portfolios that meet clients’ unique objectives for risk, capitalization profile, stock or country restrictions, and value-added.