Artisan Canvas

ESG has been an increasingly hot topic over the past couple years—and if anything, the recent pandemic and accompanying market volatility have accelerated many ESG-related conversations. As a firm without a centralized research function or a CIO, Artisan Partners’ approach to ESG and related topics has necessarily looked different.

This is part 5 in a series discussing Artisan Partners’ response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here and part 4 here.

Long-term, sophisticated relationships require two willing partners. By design, our client base consists of long-term, sophisticated investors in two primary groups: 66% of our AUM is from institutional clients, and 29% of our AUM is sourced through financial intermediaries—including broker/dealers, bank trust departments and financial advisors. Over the years, these two groups have adopted similar research processes for selecting their investment management partners and have asked relatively similar questions of us. As I alluded to in my last post, one of the critical recent questions we’ve been getting is how liquidity currently looks in the markets—a multifaceted question. 

This is part 4 in a series discussing Artisan Partners’ response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Read part 1 here, part 2 here and part 3 here.

Leading a large organization during a global crisis gives you a front-row seat to clients’ and shareholders’ evolving thought processes and concerns. We started receiving questions from our clients in early March. At first, their focus was primarily on our business continuity plan—whether we have a formal plan and structure in place to allow us to continue business as usual and whether we were prepared to deploy it should circumstances warrant. Clients asked questions like: Could our employees work from home if necessary? Would our systems and existing technology support a remote workforce? As discussed in prior posts, business continuity planning has long been part of our normal operations, so we were pleased to readily answer these early questions in the affirmative. 

Over the ensuing weeks, the questions’ tenor shifted a few times.

This is part 3 in a series discussing Artisan Partners’ response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Read part 1 here and part 2 here.

With our associates around the world working from home, one of the next challenges was ensuring they were all talking effectively under unusual circumstances. From a business standpoint, it doesn’t really matter if everyone is working remotely if they’re unable to maintain their standard practices and actually get their jobs done efficiently and well. Communication is paramount during periods of uncertainty—not only with and among our associates, but also with our clients and shareholders.

This is part 2 in a series discussing Artisan Partners’ response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Read part 1 here.

Getting a global, 400+ member workforce out of the physical offices and home is one thing. Getting them on the network and ensuring it doesn’t crash and remains secure is another altogether. So how have we done it?

The recent COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying market volatility have presented unprecedented challenges for firms globally—Artisan Partners is no exception. The crisis’s rapid evolution—from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) declaration of a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020, to the virus’s identification as COVID-19 on 11 February, to the WHO’s characterizing the outbreak as a pandemic on 11 March—has given the world little time to prepare. Companies who maintained ready-to-deploy, updated business continuity plans (BCP) have likely had an edge in ensuring relatively uninterrupted and seamless ongoing service.

In late-January, it became clear COVID-19 was a risk beyond China’s borders and could pose a threat to Artisan associates traveling or working in remote locations. Accordingly, our corporate crisis management team met on 29 January to assess the situation and determine our next steps.

At Artisan Partners, we take tremendous care to safeguard our goal of generating successful outcomes for our clients; our associates’ and clients’ well-being is our highest priority. We have a thoughtful and robust Business Continuity Management Program to ensure the safety and security of our associates and the continuation of business operations with as little interruption to our ability to serve clients as reasonable.

Given the fluidity of the COVID-19 situation, our Business Continuity Planning and Pandemic Preparedness committees have been regularly meeting jointly to ensure we are well-positioned to quickly adjust and react as circumstances warrant. This working group’s focus is evaluating the outbreak’s status, monitoring local and global governmental websites, adjusting the firm’s COVID-19 guidelines accordingly and bolstering our ongoing business continuity plan as needed. 

Eric Colson, CEO, at the Artisan Partners Investment Forum, shares how high value-added investments, a talent driven business model and thoughtful growth make us who we are. 

At Artisan Partners we believe strongly in our investment culture and share a commitment to the values that make our culture distinctive.