Founded in 1818, BBH continues to evolve its investment management business. Though it announced its intention in September 2021 to sell its global custody services segment to State Street to focus on asset management and private banking, this deal was postponed several times amid regulatory concerns and has yet to close as of October 2022.
The majority of the firm’s $78.6 billion in assets under management as of October 2022 sat in separately managed accounts, and its $17.7 billion U.S. mutual fund business largely stems from these strategies and skews towards institutional and private clients. Almost half of its mutual fund assets are in ultrashort bond fund BBH Limited Duration, which has delivered compelling long-term results under a tenured management team. Other products offered are reasonable and run with the firm’s dedicated investor base top of mind. For example, BBH Core Select peaked at $3.5 billion in assets and was closed to new investors from 2012-16 to preserve capacity. When sustained outflows triggered capital gains distributions to its sizable taxable investor base, BBH sought to avoid burdensome and unpredictable capital gains for years into the future and chose to liquidate the strategy in 2019 and to relaunch it the same year.