TWST: Please start with a historical snapshot of Invesco and an overview of your operations, brands and products today.
Mr. Starr: Invesco (IVZ)is a leading independent global investment manager, and we managed $616 billion in assets under management at the end of 2010. We have more than 600 investment professionals, each of whom work in specialized teams. These teams manage investments across a fairly significant array of asset classes and investment styles. Our clients benefit from our commitment to investment excellence, and the depth of these capabilities and our organizational strength.
Probably the most important element in terms of who we are is we have an "investors first" approach to almost everything we do, in terms of how we manage the firm and how we allocate resources. Again, the primary focus is investment excellence. We are strictly an investment company. We're not a bank, we're not an insurance company and we're not a distributor, and that is important. We have no conflicts. So this investment-centric culture that we have, why is that good? It minimizes the distractions of our investment professionals. We're able to focus our technology tools and platforms particularly on making them able to do what they need to do and navigate in the markets effectively.
The other thing we do as a global company is we share ideas, and we have a global challenge process that allows our professionals to debate topics on a global basis. I think that is a valuable element that many other firms that aren't global obviously cannot create. We have, for each of our investment teams, a very clearly articulated investment philosophy and process that has to be aligned with our clients' expectations, and these have to be consistent and work across multiple market cycles. Our CIOs in each of our investment centers are charged with managing these investment disciplines and developing the talent within these teams. The reason I'm talking a lot about these elements is that it is truly who we are, it is what Invesco is.
If you look at the history, the firm came out of a different model five years ago, where the focus was more of a holding company of separate asset managers, and we've become an integrated global investment firm over the last five years. You may also know there was a fairly significant merger between AIM Management Group and Invesco in 1997. It formed a company that was known as Amvescap, and the firm was rebranded as Invesco and moved its listing from London to the New York Stock Exchange in 2007. This was a significant change strategically in terms of the positioning of the firm, and one that I think has really allowed us to prosper relative to where we were just a few years ago.
