American Century [profile] put on a big party recently to celebrate its newfound stability, according to the Kansas City Star

Employees gathered last Wednesday for a party inside the Kansas City offices of the 54-year-old money manager. Executives had surprised them at the elevators with posters proclaiming good times, the paper reports.

“We really like where we are right now,” chief executive Jonathan Thomas said in a recent interview ahead of the celebrations.

The management aims to stabilize the company for the sake of its owners and 1,300 employees. Though this might mean lower profits and less revenue, this would also help them avoid cutbacks and layoffs.

Burton Greenwald of BJ Greenwald Associates in Philadelphia said American Century ranked in the top third of all money managers in the 2011 McKinsey & Co benchmarking survey.

Greenwald said this is pretty impressive.

The new "risk aware" strategy that American Century employed since 2007 helped the company reach a broader market. Thomas said they are after greater stability. The chief executive said, "It's a very different company in a lot of different ways."

For example, American Century in the last century made money by investing in go-go growth stocks, according to the paper.

Now it gets as much work investing money in plain old bonds — which happen to be the hottest ticket in mutual funds since the stock market’s plunge in 2008.

For more on American Century's evolution, read the full article. 

Edited by: HFD


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