Schroders

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Schroders plc is a British investment management company with its headquarters in the City of London. It is traded on the London Stock Exchange and was until 15 September 2006 a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

Schroders history began in 1804 when Johann Heinrich Schröder became a partner in his brother's London based firm. In 1818 J. Henry Schröder & Co. was established. In 2000 Schroders sold its investment banking division to Citigroup and Citigroup's European investment banking arm traded as Schroder Salomon Smith Barney from 2000 to 2003. Schroders is now a specialist investment management company. It operates through four divisions: private banking, institutional services, private equity, and mutual funds. Its clients include corporations, insurance companies, local and public authorities, charities, pension funds, high net worth individuals and retail investors. Schroders operates in around thirty countries, with its main offices in London, New York and Zurich, and smaller offices in most of the main financial centres of Europe, the Americas and the Asia Pacific region.

In the year ended 31 December 2004 the company made a profit before tax of £191 million and a net profit of £134 million on net revenues of £515.8 million. At 31 March 2005 it had assets under management of £108.9 billion ($205.0/€158.2 billion).

Schroders has two share classes: voting shares (SDR.L) and non-voting shares (SDRt.L).

Schroders bears the name of the Schroder family who have an estimated wealth of just over £1.2 billion.

Alan Brown, who joined as Head of Investment in 2005 from State Street Corporation, has launched an initiative to bring the external perceptions of the company up to speed with reality. To this end, the 'Talking Point' website has been set up in order to reflect and promote Schroders' position as a 'thought leader' in the fields of investment management, finance, and economics. Alan Brown himself has recently enjoyed considerable press exposure by virtue of his own 'thought leadership' on liability-driven investment as a way to approach not only the pensions crisis, but pension investment in general.