This fully employee-owned investment boutique has a solid core, with its flagship Schafer Cullen High Dividend Value Equity strategy accounting for almost 70% of the firm's USD 22.5 billion in assets as of December 2022. CEO and chairman James Cullen founded the firm 40 years ago with just that strategy, but it now runs 13 dividend-focused, value-equity mandates and has a budding subadvisory business. The firm's mutual funds could have more competitive fees, but the majority of the firm's assets are in lower-priced models and separate accounts. Schafer Cullen has steadily added to its investment team as it has added mandates and grown assets, and turnover has been limited among this cohort.
James Cullen looms large as a listed manager on most of the firm's funds and as a majority owner of the firm, but he has little day-to-day involvement with investment strategies, and Schafer Cullen has taken steps to address succession concerns elsewhere. His son Brooks Cullen, who joined the firm in 1994, is a member of the executive committee and is expected to succeed his father as CEO; additionally, the executive committee has granted equity ownership to a growing pool of employees in recent years.