Ariel Investments Winner

Founded in 1983 in Chicago, Ariel Investments LLC has $13.8 billion in assets under management. In 2023, it launched two emerging markets strategies to put the firm’s investing philosophy to work in an asset class the firm states “many investors fear [but has] the potential to provide outsized returns.”

The firm’s EM strategies, Emerging Markets Value and Emerging Markets Value ex-China, amassed more than $23 million in assets by the end of 2024 and both have outperformed the MSCI EM Value Net Index since their 2023 inceptions in April and May, respectively.

Ariel continues to emphasize the founding belief that diverse teams drive better outcomes. The firm seeks to develop its own, unique insights “and is comfortable being uncomfortable.” Forty-nine percent of the company’s leadership is comprised of people of color, 51% are women, and 95.6% of the firm is comprised of employee and board ownership.

Along with looking “past today’s turbulence to see tomorrow’s possibilities,” Ariel’s investment philosophy focuses on what it calls “catalysts”: events it finds “capable of moving the share price of a company upwards or downwards over a short period of time.”

Recent innovations, in addition to the new funds, include the 2023 launch of a proprietary quantitative tool, the Ariel Investment Model. The model “enhances the investment process and aids in the firm’s ‘devil’s advocate’ role by screening for company profitability, good valuation and business momentum across markets, countries and sectors,” the firm stated.

Finalists

• AGI
• Brookfield Asset Management
• Principal Asset Management