Capital Group Companies

The Capital Group Companies is one of the world’s largest investment managementorganizations with assets of around one trillion USD under management. It comprises a group of investment management companies, including Capital Research and Management, American Funds, Capital Bank and Trust, Capital Guardian, and Capital International. As measured by assets under management, Capital rivals Fidelity Investments, a figure the company will not confirm because it eschews publicity. The firm was founded in 1931 by Jonathan Bell Lovelace.
Jonathan Bell Lovelace was raised in Southern Alabama by a family who was in the timber business. He initially studied to become an architect at what was then Alabama Polytechnic (Currently Auburn University). After college, he enlisted in the military, working on a project that pioneered anti-aircraft artillery. Lovelace worked with E.E. MacCrone & Company, eventually becoming a partner. In 1929, Lovelace believed the stock market to be wildly overvalued and sold his stake in the company. In 1931, he founded an investment firm, Lovelace, Dennis & Renfrew, what would eventually become the Capital Group Companies. The early company was a model of efficiency, with communications between Los Angeles and New York being hugely expensive.

Capital Group is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, and has over 7,000 associates in 23 office locations around the globe, including offices in London, Geneva, Sydney, Toronto, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Mumbai and Singapore. The company also has a large newly built campus in Irvine, California, making it one of the largest employers in that city. Due to the recent decline in the markets and economy, the company has reduced its staff by over 1,500 from the previous high of 9,000 associates. Its families of mutual fund sinclude "American Funds" and "Capital International Funds." On the institutional side, Capital manages money for pensions, governments, and other entities worldwide. It also manages money for wealthy individuals and engages in private equity investments. One of its subsidiaries, Capital International, was responsible for the construction of the MSCI stock market indices. The Capital Group was voted as the third-most satisfactory workplace in the Greater Los Angeles area by the Los Angeles Business Journal in 2006.

The American Funds, managed by the Capital Group Companies was as of June 2007 the largest family of mutual funds in the US, followed by The Vanguard Group and Fidelity Investments, with roughly $1.3 trillion in assets under management.

In 2008, Capital Research and Management Company implemented the disaggregation of its equity investment operations to become known as Capital Research Global Investors and Capital World Investors.

A study published in September, 2009 in the scientific journal Physical Review E on the topic of new network analysis methodologies in economics concluded — in the course of presenting an example — that The Capital Group was the most powerful controlling shareholder in the global stock market, with major stakes in 36 of the 48 countries studied.

Capital Group is organized into tiers of subsidiaries, one of which is the wholly owned Capital Guardian Trust Company, which in turn manages the division, Personal Investment Management, founded in 1974 to manage the assets of employees and retirees of The Capital Group Companies.

AUM   1.0 trillion