Thomas White International

Description of the company:

Thomas White International, Ltd. (“TWI”) was founded in 1992 by Thomas S White, Jr. Chairman and Chief Investment Officer, a former managing director of Morgan Stanley Asset Management. The firm is 100% employee-owned and fosters a strong investment culture by hiring its senior analysts and portfolio managers at the beginning of their investment careers and training them from scratch. Thomas White currently has a total of 51 employees, including 25 in its Bangalore, India office, which was established in 2006 to support the senior investment professionals in the Chicago headquarters. All investment decisions, portfolio management, client service and trading functions are performed at the Chicago location.

The Thomas White investment approach blends the best elements of both worlds - a systematic method that identifies out-of-favor investment opportunities and is repeatable and scalable over time, combined with a process designed to mitigate risk through careful stock selectivity and decision-making by members of a senior investment committee that has been together for an average of 17 years.

Thomas White International manages over $2 billion today and has raised $600 million in new assets since 2011. The firm has made significant investments in the ability to handle asset growth from an operational perspective, both in terms of technology and human resources. Thomas White has been selected to manage a new International Fund for Openwork’s Omnis single strategy fund range, covering developed countries to be offered to U.K. retail clients commencing in April 2013.

In addition, Thomas White International is in the process of finalizing the Thomas White Worldwide Funds plc, which is a Dublin-based UCITs IV umbrella structure for the firm’s Global Equity strategy. The global fund will be seeded with $50 million and is expected to be available early in the second quarter. Thomas White also has a shelf registration for the Global Emerging Markets (GEM) strategy, with the objective for the current year to find additional investors. The institutional share class is expected to be competitively priced for all initial and subsequent clients. Northern Trust and Deloitte are the service providers for the UCITs.