Why today’s investors can still rely on our founding principles

At T. Rowe Price, we have one business—investments.

And one purpose—to help our clients find the best investment solutions to serve their current and future needs.

We are an independent, global investment management firm, offering a full range of equity, fixed income, and multi-asset strategies across multiple asset classes, capitalizations, sectors, styles, and regions.

We have been serving investors since 1937. However, the fundamental principles upon which Thomas Rowe Price, Jr. founded the company remain as relevant today as they have ever been.

First and foremost, we put our clients first. We believe that the firm’s success follows from the success of our clients.

Today, clients all over the world rely on our steadfast principles and disciplined investment approach to remain confident in their investments.

T. Rowe Price is an asset management firm focused on delivering global investment management excellence and retirement services that investors can rely on—now, and over the long term.

We manage assets on behalf of corporations, public retirement plans, foundations, endowments, financial intermediaries, and sovereign entities.

Our intellectual rigor helps us seek the best ideas for our clients, our integrity ensures that we always put client interests first, and our stability lets us stay focused on client goals as we maintain a long-term view and reinvest in our business to pursue consistent, repeatable performance.

We believe proprietary fundamental research is core to our ability to identify sound, long-term investments. This entails rigorous analysis at the regional, sector, industry, and company level to identify promising investment opportunities—and those to be avoided.

To select the best opportunities, we actively test and challenge our own opinions. For instance, selecting a corporate bond requires meeting with management teams to directly discuss their marketing strategies, company dynamics, and competitive landscape. We use these face-to-face meetings to challenge our own preconceptions and those of the management team—an approach that often results in a penetrating dialogue with revealing insights.

Combined with a thorough macro-understanding, our bottom-up approach forms the foundation for thousands of investment decisions every year, helping to ensure that we are well positioned to understand the true value and possible risks for our clients.

As foreign companies assumed greater importance in the global investment marketplace, we moved to ensure that our clients had access to these opportunities. In 1979, we partnered with U.K.-based Robert Fleming Holdings Limited to form Rowe Price-Fleming International.

We acquired complete ownership of the partnership in 2000, creating T. Rowe Price International Ltd. This greatly enhances our ability to reach new clients and distribute investment products around the world.

Diverse thinking and healthy debate are deeply ingrained in our investment culture. We believe looking at investment opportunities from multiple perspectives is the most reliable way to reveal their true potential.

Our collaborative culture ensures an open environment where ideas are exchanged between experts from diverse disciplines and everyone is motivated to share their best thinking. We contrast and compare our opinions with information gathered on the ground and with macro-level views.

In addition, the company evaluates analysts not only by the performance of their recommendations but also by their ability to communicate and share ideas with their colleagues.

Overall, we believe that our culture of collaboration enhances our ability to identify opportunities others might overlook and generate, long-term results for our clients.

The principles on which Thomas Rowe Price, Jr. founded the firm are every bit as relevant today as they were in 1937. His belief in the value of a long-term approach, even to the detriment of short-term gain, has helped our clients weather many storms over the years. To that end, our attention to risk has contributed to our clients’ success. We thoughtfully manage risk from multiple angles and carefully balance both risk and reward in our pursuit of competitive performance.

The average tenure of our portfolio managers is well beyond the industry average. This means that our investment professionals have knowledge of multiple market cycles and can bring significant experience to bear on every investment decision.

As an investment manager, we have a solid balance sheet with zero long-term debt. This stability helps us to operate with a long-term view and to continually reinvest in our business and investment capabilities so that we can better serve our clients.