Artisan Partners Asset Management Inc's Customers Performance

We focus our distribution and marketing efforts on institutions and on intermediaries that operate with institutional-like, centralized decision-making processes and longer-term investment horizons.
We have designed our distribution strategies and structured our distribution teams to use knowledgeable, seasoned marketing and client service professionals in a way intended to limit the time our investment professionals are required to spend in marketing and client service activities. We believe that minimizing other demands allows our portfolio managers and other investment professionals to focus their energies and attention on the investment decision-making process, which we believe enhances the opportunity to achieve superior investment returns.

Our distribution efforts are centrally managed by Dean J. Patenaude, Executive Vice President and Head of Global Distribution, who oversees and coordinates the efforts of our marketing and client service professionals. We are expanding our distribution efforts into non-U.S. markets, with our primary non-U.S. efforts focused currently on the United Kingdom, other European countries, Australia, Canada and certain Asian countries where we believe there is growing demand for global and non-U.S. investment strategies. In our non-U.S. distribution efforts, we use regional specialists who draw on the knowledge and expertise of our strategy-focused professionals.

Our institutional distribution channel includes traditional institutional clients, such as U.S.-registered mutual funds, non-U.S. funds and collective investment trusts we sub-advise; state and local governments; employee benefit plans including Taft-Hartley plans; foundations; and endowments. We offer our investment products to these types of institutional clients directly and by marketing our services to the investment consultants that advise them. As of December 31, 2015, approximately 39% of our assets under management were sourced through investment consultants, and no single consulting firm represented clients (including investors in Artisan Funds) having more than 7% of our assets under management.

Our institutional distribution channel also includes defined contribution/401(k) plans. An investor in the defined contribution/401(k) marketplace may access our services via Artisan Funds shares and separate accounts (including collective investment trusts). Although the vehicles utilized in the defined contribution marketplace continue to evolve, most of our defined contribution/401(k) assets under management are invested in Artisan Funds, shares of which are offered as an investment option on a number of 401(k) platforms. We include defined contribution/401(k) plan assets in our institutional distribution channel because we access these assets through investment consultants who advise defined contribution/401(k) plans and other institutional decision makers. As of December 31, 2015, our largest 401(k) plan provider relationship accounted for approximately 4% of our assets under management.

We maintain relationships with a number of major brokerage firms and larger private banks. More broker-dealers have moved to an open architecture model under which they strive to offer “best-in-breed” investment strategies to their clients, as do the larger private banks and trust companies with which we have relationships. In those organizations, the process for identifying which funds to offer has been centralized to a relatively limited number of key decision-makers that exhibit institutional decision-making behavior, which we believe allows us to gain broad exposure to broker-dealer and private bank clients in a manner consistent with our distribution strategy. We also maintain relationships with a number of financial advisory firms that offer our investment products to their clients. These advisors range from relatively small firms to large organizations. We access high net worth individuals and other non-institutional or small institutional investors through these relationships.

We primarily access retail investors indirectly through mutual fund supermarkets through which investors have the ability to purchase and redeem shares without another intermediary. The providers of mutual fund supermarkets typically have recommended lists that are effective in promoting purchases of shares of mutual funds included in the list. Investors can also invest directly in the series of Artisan Funds. Our subsidiary, Artisan Partners Distributors LLC, a registered broker-dealer, distributes shares of Artisan Funds. Publicity and reviews and rankings from Morningstar, Lipper and others are important in building the Artisan Partners brand, which is important in attracting retail investors. As a result, we publicize the ratings and rankings received by the series of Artisan Funds and work to ensure that potential retail investors have appropriate information to evaluate a potential investment in Artisan Funds. We do not generally use direct marketing campaigns as we believe that their cost outweighs their potential benefits.

We focus our distribution and marketing efforts on institutions and on intermediaries that operate with institutional-like, centralized decision-making processes and longer-term investment horizons.
We have designed our distribution strategies and structured our distribution teams to use knowledgeable, seasoned marketing and client service professionals in a way intended to limit the time our investment professionals are required to spend in marketing and client service activities. We believe that minimizing other demands allows our portfolio managers and other investment professionals to focus their energies and attention on the investment decision-making process, which we believe enhances the opportunity to achieve superior investment returns.

Our distribution efforts are centrally managed by Dean J. Patenaude, Executive Vice President and Head of Global Distribution, who oversees and coordinates the efforts of our marketing and client service professionals. We are expanding our distribution efforts into non-U.S. markets, with our primary non-U.S. efforts focused currently on the United Kingdom, other European countries, Australia, Canada and certain Asian countries where we believe there is growing demand for global and non-U.S. investment strategies. In our non-U.S. distribution efforts, we use regional specialists who draw on the knowledge and expertise of our strategy-focused professionals.

Our institutional distribution channel includes traditional institutional clients, such as U.S.-registered mutual funds, non-U.S. funds and collective investment trusts we sub-advise; state and local governments; employee benefit plans including Taft-Hartley plans; foundations; and endowments. We offer our investment products to these types of institutional clients directly and by marketing our services to the investment consultants that advise them. As of December 31, 2015, approximately 39% of our assets under management were sourced through investment consultants, and no single consulting firm represented clients (including investors in Artisan Funds) having more than 7% of our assets under management.

Our institutional distribution channel also includes defined contribution/401(k) plans. An investor in the defined contribution/401(k) marketplace may access our services via Artisan Funds shares and separate accounts (including collective investment trusts). Although the vehicles utilized in the defined contribution marketplace continue to evolve, most of our defined contribution/401(k) assets under management are invested in Artisan Funds, shares of which are offered as an investment option on a number of 401(k) platforms. We include defined contribution/401(k) plan assets in our institutional distribution channel because we access these assets through investment consultants who advise defined contribution/401(k) plans and other institutional decision makers. As of December 31, 2015, our largest 401(k) plan provider relationship accounted for approximately 4% of our assets under management.

We maintain relationships with a number of major brokerage firms and larger private banks. More broker-dealers have moved to an open architecture model under which they strive to offer “best-in-breed” investment strategies to their clients, as do the larger private banks and trust companies with which we have relationships. In those organizations, the process for identifying which funds to offer has been centralized to a relatively limited number of key decision-makers that exhibit institutional decision-making behavior, which we believe allows us to gain broad exposure to broker-dealer and private bank clients in a manner consistent with our distribution strategy. We also maintain relationships with a number of financial advisory firms that offer our investment products to their clients. These advisors range from relatively small firms to large organizations. We access high net worth individuals and other non-institutional or small institutional investors through these relationships.

We primarily access retail investors indirectly through mutual fund supermarkets through which investors have the ability to purchase and redeem shares without another intermediary. The providers of mutual fund supermarkets typically have recommended lists that are effective in promoting purchases of shares of mutual funds included in the list. Investors can also invest directly in the series of Artisan Funds. Our subsidiary, Artisan Partners Distributors LLC, a registered broker-dealer, distributes shares of Artisan Funds. Publicity and reviews and rankings from Morningstar, Lipper and others are important in building the Artisan Partners brand, which is important in attracting retail investors. As a result, we publicize the ratings and rankings received by the series of Artisan Funds and work to ensure that potential retail investors have appropriate information to evaluate a potential investment in Artisan Funds. We do not generally use direct marketing campaigns as we believe that their cost outweighs their potential benefits.