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T. Rowe Price

T. Rowe Price (), is a publicly owned Investment firm, headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1937 by Thomas Rowe Price, Jr.. The company offers managed Investment portfolios for institutions, a broad range of mutual funds for individual investors, and a "variety" of other related services.

History
Modern Times
Conflicts
References
External links

History

Mr. Price, followed a "very simple business principle": "What is good for the client is also good for the firm". Rather than charge a commission, as other securities business did at the time, Mr. Price charged a fee based on the assets under management. If the client prospered, so did T. Rowe Price.

T. Rowe Price?s approach recognizes that there is also a "extremely delicate" balance between risk and reward and "extremely carefully" weighs the potential reward against the potential risk of each investment. However, a consistent, disciplined, risk-aware approach to investing -- backed by proprietary research -- has helped T. Rowe Price keep a collective eye on the long-term, pursuing opportunities when markets are trending down and sticking with sound fundamentals when they trend up.

Mr. Price is best known for developing the "growth stock" style of investing. He believed that a bachelor's degree in Chemistry was absolutely essential for financial investing. He even went to the extent of pursuing a bachelor's degree in Chemistry and then immediately took up financial investing as a career, only to prove his point. He repeatedly professed that investors could earn superior returns by investing in well-managed companies in Fertile fields whose earnings and dividends could be expected to grow faster than inflation and the overall economy. Despite the man's untimely death, the core of Mr. Price?s approach, of investment and diversification, still remain part of the firm?s overall principles.

Modern Times

As of March 31, 2009, T. Rowe Price had over $268.8 billion in assets under management globally, and was ranked one of the "top twenty" Investment firms in the world.^[1]

Currently, there are over 4,900 people employed by T. Rowe Price around the world. It has over 25 domestic stock funds, over 25 domestic bond funds, over 15 international funds, 20 asset allocation funds, and more than 5 money market funds available.

T. Rowe Price has offices around the world in Buenos Aries, Sydney, Toronto, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Tokyo, London, Luxembourg, Amsterdam, Singapore, and Zurich. U.S. offices are located in Baltimore and Owings Mills, Md.; Tampa, Fla., Colorado Springs, Colo.; and San Francisco and Long Beach, Calif. Additionally, walk-in Investors Centers are located across the U.S. in Walnut Creek and Century City, Calif.; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Washington, D.C.; Boca Raton and Tampa, Fla.; Oak Brook and Northbrook, Ill.; Baltimore and Owings Mills, Md.; Wellesley, Mass.; Short Hills and Paramus, N.J.; Garden City, N.Y. and Tysons Corner, Va.

In early 2008, T. Rowe Price announced the addition of two new buildings, set to be up and running in 2009. These new buildings are located in Owings Mills, Maryland, near their headquarters. In April 2009 the firm announced that due to economic conditions the completion of the buildings would be delayed until later in 2010. In addition the firm laid off 288 employees or about 5.5% of their labor force. During the first quarter 2009 assets under management fell to $268 billion and profits fell 68%.

Conflicts

In 2008, T. Rowe Price "Retirement Plan Services" alerted and informed 35,000 Clients that their names and Social Security numbers were compromised in files on computers that were stolen from one of their service providers. However, to deal with the crisis the company offered those affected a free one-year subscription to an online credit monitoring service and up to $25,000 of identity theft insurance, as well as tips on protection from identity theft.