What Do Asset Managers Do?
Job Descriptions September 30, 2013Asset managers supervise the complete system of asset management, which involves maintaining the value of a company. Assets refer to any valuable items in business, usually tangible, such as real estate, vehicles and land.
However, there are also intangible properties that count as assets including intellectual property and goodwill. Making sure the assets maintain their value is tremendously important, which helps increase the company’s profile.
The Ideas Behind Asset Management
In addition to maintaining value, it is vital achieve the best possible return, not to mention providing ideal service to clients. The manager usually works for a financial company that handles investments, whether from personal clients or large businesses.
Your job will actually involve many different tasks, from analyzing portfolios, to forecasting financial trends, to giving advice. The investor you work for wants to be certain that the assets in possession as working efficiently so that they are creating returns are not merely liabilities.
The process begins with an analysis of the portfolio, which the manager performs. Based on this information, he/she can recommend a strategy. Throughout this analysis, you can make suggestions on what the client should do to improve the value, and where weaknesses lie. Knowing the market is important, and it is vital to understand how market trends can influence new investment opportunities.
You will be creating a plan based on your own research, and also based on the goals of the person you are working with. However, hypotheses will not work. You have to analyze the market as well, and see whether the financial data is in sync with these lofty goals.
This is largely a team-based career path, since asset management companies will customarily pool resources when possible so that they can offer great opportunities in packages beyond one-on-one contracts. Of course, doing so will require greater capital, better rates and more options to the investors accepting the deal.
Once the plan is finalized, the company monitors the strategy, to see how it’s performing, while also handling performance statements and goal charting.
Strategies and Visions for Assets
As far as your future goes, remember that the company can only afford to keep their investors as clients if they are capable of showing the client how they can always count on returns. This means you as the aspiring asset manager have to show yourself as educated, responsible and as financially mature to understand what strategies work.
In essence, this is a job that is all about where the money is, and in times, recession (which the industry of asset management has certainly been suffering from since 2008) strategy and careful analysis is critical.
The basic strategy underneath the financial vision is that you use the money you have to make more. However, each party must have clear financial objectives in mind and work, within standard guidelines, to reach these goals. Communicating these needs to your client, or listening and adapting your financial training to the clients’ ideas, are the most important aspects of the job.
Asset managers perform many of the same functions as stock brokers and financial advisers, but with weightier responsibilities, as well. You now balance infrastructure and preside over other managers as well as a team of analysts in some cases.
A college education from the schools listed below is a step in the right direction for applying for a high ranking and high-earning job such as an asset manager.
