Per BBG:
Wellington Management Co. is a rarity in the investment world: a fund manager with more than $1 trillion of assets and almost zero brand recognition.
Not for long.
The staid, nearly century-old firm that mostly serves vanilla equity and bond strategies to buttoned-up institutions like pensions and endowments is now moving aggressively into private markets and hedge funds. Wellington is spending big to hire from bulge-bracket banks and alternative investment firms, adding dozens of private markets professionals to build a unit of about 40 people.
It’s also hustling to build a brand with retail investors, many of whom have never heard of the $1.3 trillion firm. It’s a big change for a money manager that for decades didn’t care about what the world thought, as long as its big institutional clients were happy.
Among its recent hires, Wellington recruited a head of private investments capital formation from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., poached a team from Pacific Investment Management Co. to expand in private credit and hired Christina Kopec Rooney from Goldman’s asset management arm to head its nascent push into the US wealth market. It even partnered with private equity giant Blackstone Inc. and Vanguard Group to launch hybrid funds for retail investors.
In perhaps its most radical shift, Wellington – housed across 19 floors in Boston’s Atlantic Wharf – has done the previously unthinkable: It hired a public relations team.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-05/wellington-management-seeks-the-spotlight-after-100-years-of-shunning-it?srnd=homepage-americas... take that as you will. For me, I prefer investment managers that tend to stay in the background. My go-to is Capital Group (where I'm deeply invested across accounts) but in terms of quiet, steady-eddie operations Wellington, D&C, etc are right up there as well.
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Subscription link https://www.barrons.com/articles/vanguard-active-funds-38f74fcb
Vanguard Is Dipping Into Active Stock ETFs
"... take that as you will. For me, I prefer investment managers that tend to stay in the background. My go-to is Capital Group (where I'm deeply invested across accounts) but in terms of quiet, steady-eddie operations Wellington, D&C, etc are right up there as well."
Theo Kolokotrones, and Mitch Milias—were senior portfolio managers at Capital Group.
Primecap Management implements an investment approach similar to Capital Group
where multiple portfolio managers independently select securities for a mutual fund.
The firm focuses on research and portfolio management with little regard to sales and marketing.
Primecap Management is the advisor for three Vanguard mutual funds
and they also offer three funds under the Primecap Odyssey brand.
Bogle was rushing to launch no-load Vanguard in 1974/75 because he was afraid that Capital Group/AF may beat him to that.
But Capital Group did nothing of the sort. In fact, it became the class champion - tapping all channel sources for its funds. So, RERFX has 19 classes! Then, there are ETFs and separate accounts.