Boston Partners

Boston Partners is an American investment management firm headquartered in Boston. The firm focuses on value investing in equities.

Background
Boston Partners traces its origins to The Boston Company, a firm founded in 1865 that provided custodial and trust services to mutual funds, pension funds and charity organizations. In 1981, it was acquired by Shearson under American Express for $50 million. In 1993, Shearson sold The Boston Company to Mellon Bank (Mellon) for $1.5 billion which was considered a hefty price and was not well received by Mellon shareholders.

Boston Company Asset Management (BCAM), the asset management unit of The Boston Company was stated to have friction with Mellon for years. BCAM managers complained that Mellon was reducing their autonomy. At one point, Mellon had tried to dismiss two BCAM managers for securities lending losses. Desmond Heathwood, the chairman and CEO of BCAM attempted to lead a management buyout from Mellon for $150 million but was unsuccessful.

In April 1995, Heathwood and several other BCAM executives left BCAM to form their own firm, Boston Partners. At the time, Boston Partners had 33 employees who were almost all previously part of BCAM's equity team. On April 25, Boston Partners moved into its office at One Financial Center and on May 8, started managing assets for clients. 90% of its clients were former BCAM clients. A legal battle between BCAM and Boston Partners ensued with BCAM suing five of Boston Partners' founders claiming a breach of fiduciary duty and misappropriation of trade secrets. In December that year, both parties settled with Boston Partners making an undisclosed payment to BCAM. In addition Boston Partners was preventing from touting the performance of its managers back when they were at BCAM. Both parties were barred from talking about the details of the case.

In September 2002, Robeco acquired 60% of shares in Boston Partners. In 2003, Robeco acquired the remaining 40% of shares making Boston Partners wholly-owned.

In February 2013, Orix acquired Robeco making it the ultimate parent company of Boston Partners.

Boston Partners' main strategy is value investing in equities. It relies on metrics such as P/E ratio and P/B ratio.

Alleged disability discrimination
In April 2022, Martin MacDonnell, a portfolio manager at Boston Partners sued the firm claiming it had engaged in disability discrimination since late 2018. He stated after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, he was diagnosed with PTSD by the Massachusetts General Hospital which had affected his  executive functioning such as working memory. MacDonnell's attorneys state between late 2018 and 2020, the firm did not inform him restructurings or potential job opening while making him take on additional duties in understaffed roles. Eventually on January 4, 2021, MacDonnell had a panic attack and had to go to the emergency room. A few weeks later, MacDonnell was informed he was demoted while on personal leave. In the summer that year, MacDonnell tried to return to work but the firm stated he couldn't. In July that year, the firm stopped paying MacDonnell and informed him that is position was that of a quantitative analyst, a role he had not held in over 14 years. In addition the lawsuit stated Joseph Feeny, the firm's CEO wrote an offensive email over its short position on GameStop which mocked mental health disabilities and used the term "retard".