SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Wilshire Consulting, the institutional investment advisory and outsourced-CIO (OCIO) business unit of Wilshire Associates, today announced a new inclusivity initiative aimed to deliver fresh perspectives to client portfolios and promote greater manager diversity.
Wilshire Consulting continually seeks to evolve its business to meet client needs, and has adopted this initiative in recognition of the increasing desire amongst its clients to enhance the diversity of the investment management firms represented in their portfolios.
“Women and minorities remain underrepresented in our industry, and ensuring that clients are aware of the many talented firms led by these managers is a priority for Wilshire Consulting,” said Andrew Junkin, President of Wilshire Consulting. “We remain committed to producing insightful research focused on addressing the investment opportunities and challenges facing our clients, and we are confident that this initiative will enable us to work more successfully with diverse-owned firms.”
In recognizing both the evidence and the potential value of manager diversity to clients, Wilshire Consulting has implemented the following changes:
- Wilshire Consulting will now include at least one diverse-owned firm in every public securities manager search it conducts for advisory clients, where products are available that fit the client mandate. This expands the opportunity set of prospective products to which clients have access, highlights diversity in the investment management community, and provides clients with exposure to that diversity.
- A statistic representing the percentage of ownership held in firms by women or minorities will now be included in Wilshire Consulting’s standard search books to highlight diversity in the manager search process.
- Wilshire Consulting has changed its compensation system such that one of the qualitative criteria for senior consultants for incentive compensation is the quality and level of interaction with diverse-owned firms. This specifically aligns the interests of senior leaders with this important effort.
- Wilshire Consulting has renamed its “Emerging Manager Asset Class Committee” to the “Diverse Owned Manager Asset Class Committee.” While the focus of this committee has largely been on finding talented, diverse-owned firms (representing over 75% of evaluation activity over the past three years), it has also historically dealt with smaller (less than $2 billion in AUM) firms.
- In order to provide additional support, Wilshire Consulting plans to broaden its diverse-owned manager outreach and create a series of educational seminars for this group in 2018.
“Wilshire Consulting is taking meaningful steps towards diversity and inclusion in the asset management field, and this is genuine leadership, which we commend,” said Robert Raben of the Diverse Asset Managers Initiative (DAMI). “Wilshire recognizes that we have the talent, performance is there, and interest among asset owners for diverse managers is growing, so it’s smart business to connect supply and demand in this way. We were honored to work together regarding how they could more effectively engage with women and minority-owned firms, in a way that best serves their clients. DAMI looks forward to continuing to work with Wilshire to implement this initiative.”
About Wilshire Consulting
Wilshire Consulting, the institutional investment advisory and outsourced-CIO (OCIO) business unit of Wilshire Associates, has provided custom investment consulting solutions to fund sponsors for 35 years. Through its investment consulting services to public and corporate clients, Wilshire Consulting assists in ensuring secure and safe retirements for approximately 49 million Americans including those participating in some of the nation’s largest public and corporate retirement plans. Combined with its endowment, foundation and major insurance company clients, it consults on combined total assets of nearly $1 trillion.
Wilshire consultants advise public and corporate clients on asset allocation, risk management, investment policy development, asset class structuring, investment manager evaluation and monitoring, and actuarial services. Wilshire OCIO Solutions offers clients a holistic option that includes full discretionary services or implemented services where plans outsource their back office. Follow Wilshire Consulting on Twitter: @WilshireConsult.
About Wilshire Associates
Wilshire Associates, a leading global, independent investment consulting and services firm, provides consulting services, analytics solutions and customized investment products to plan sponsors, investment managers and financial intermediaries. Its business units include Wilshire Analytics, Wilshire Consulting, Wilshire Funds Management and Wilshire Private Markets.
The firm was founded in 1972, providing revolutionary technology and acting as an early innovator in the application of investment analytics and research to investment managers in the institutional marketplace. Wilshire also is credited with helping to develop the field of quantitative investment analysis that uses mathematical tools to analyze market risks. All other business units evolved from Wilshire’s strong analytics foundation. Wilshire developed the Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index℠ and became an early innovator in creating integrated asset/liability analysis/simulation models as well as practical models in risk budgeting through beta and active risk analysis. Wilshire has approximately 300 employees serving the needs of investors around the world.
Based in Santa Monica, California, Wilshire provides services to clients in more than 20 countries representing more than 500 organizations with assets totaling approximately US $7 trillion.* With ten offices worldwide, Wilshire Associates and its affiliates are dedicated to providing clients with the highest quality counsel, products and services. Wilshire® is a registered service mark of Wilshire Associates Incorporated. Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index℠ is a service mark of Wilshire Associates Incorporated. Please visit http://www.wilshire.com.
