Southeastern Asset Management is an American employee-owned, global investment management firm founded in 1975 by O. Mason Hawkins and the investment advisor to the Longleaf Partners Funds, a suite of mutual funds and UCITS funds. Southeastern has approximately 60 employees worldwide, as of December 2013, and is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, with additional offices in London, England; Singapore; and Sydney, Australia.
Approximately 60% of Southeastern's assets under management is in separately managed accounts for institutional investors, and the remaining 40% is invested in the Longleaf Partners Mutual and UCITS Funds. The firm invests across four mandates: U.S. Large Cap, U.S. Small Cap, Non-U.S., and Global.[3] As of November 2022, the firm had $6.9 billion in assets under management.[4]
History
Southeastern Asset Management was founded by Mason Hawkins in 1975. In 1987, Southeastern created the Longleaf Partners Fund, its first mutual fund product, in order to allow its employees to invest in the funds owned by its clients. The Longleaf Small-Cap Fund was seeded two years later in 1989 as a way to invest in undervalued businesses that were too small for the firm's existing portfolios. The Small-Cap Fund later closed to new investors in 1997 and remains closed today.[5]