Dimensional Fund Advisors
Dimensional Fund Advisors L.P. (abbreviated as Dimensional, DFA) is a private investment firm headquartered in Austin, Texas, United States. The company has affiliates within 13 offices in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Netherlands, Australia, Singapore, and Japan. DFA was founded in 1981 by David G. Booth and Rex Sinquefield, both graduates of the School of Business (now known as the Booth School of Business), and Larry G Klotz. The company’s investment philosophy is rooted in the efficient market hypothesis and thus they were one of the earliest investing firms to emphasize index funds. [3] The company offers over 100 equity and fixed income mutual funds and ETFs.
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Type | Private |
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Industry | Finance |
Founded | 1981 |
Founders | David G. Booth Rex Sinquefield |
Headquarters | Austin, Texas, United States |
Key people | David G. Booth (Executive Chairman) Dave Butler (Co-CEO) Gerard K. O'Reilly (Co-CEO) |
Products | Money Management and Investment |
AUM | ![]() |
Number of employees | 1,400+ (2020)[2] |
Website | dimensional |
The company is owned by its employees, board members and outside investors, which as of 2005 was reported to include Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California. [4][5]
In 2009 Dimensional acquired SmartNest, a retirement planning computer software company.[6] Researcher Robert C. Merton left SmartNest's board after the purchase and became a Resident Scientist at Dimensional working on technology from the acquisition which became their Managed DC pension product. [7][8][9]
DFA currently operates in Austin (TX), Charlotte (NC), Santa Monica (CA), Toronto (Canada), Vancouver (Canada), London (UK), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Berlin (Germany), Tokyo (Japan), Hong Kong (Hong Kong), Singapore (Singapore), Sydney (Australia), Melbourne (Australia).[10]
2020 saw record outflows of over $30B from DFA mutual funds.[11][12][13] In November 2020, the company announced it was abandoning its strictly advisor-access only mutual fund business model and it would offer two fund products repackaged as ETFs to start followed by six others at a later date.[14][15]
References
- "Dimensional Investing". Retrieved 2021-01-21.
- https://web.archive.org/web/20201231141630/https://us.dimensional.com/
- "Dimensional Investing | Dimensional Fund Advisors". Dimensional. Retrieved 2018-11-09.
- The truth about Arnold Archived 2007-11-18 at the Wayback Machine, by Peter Byrne. salon.com, February 15, 2005; see also Schwarzenegger’s Next Goal on Dogged, Ambitious Path, by Bernard Weinraub and Charlie LeDuff. New York Times, August 17, 2003.
- "The Evolution of an Investor", by Michael Lewis. "Portfolio Magazine", December 2007.
- Inklebarger, Timothy (2009-12-02). "Dimensional adds retirement planning software firm". Pensions & Investments. Retrieved 2013-05-12.
- "Curriculum Vitae". www.robertcmerton.com. Robert C Merton. Retrieved 2021-01-20.
- "Robert Merton". Becker Friedman Institute.
- "Next Generation Retirement Planning" (PDF).
- "Contact Us, Dimensional Offices".
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-13/mutual-funds-bleed-469-billion-as-etfs-triumph-in-zero-sum-2020
- https://www.riaintel.com/article/b1p9bzt7nslzlc/billions-are-flowing-out-of-dimensional-fund-advisors-as-it-debuts-etfs
- https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/dgeix/parent
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-18/dimensional-etfs-launch-as-quant-plans-to-convert-mutual-funds
- https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/01/dimensional-mutual-funds-to-launch-as-etfs-heres-why.html