Asset management

Asset management, broadly defined, refers to any system that monitors and maintains things of value to an entity or group. It may apply to both tangible assets such as buildings and to intangible assets such as human capital, intellectual property, and goodwill and financial assets. Asset management is a systematic process of deploying, operating, maintaining, upgrading, and disposing of assets cost-effectively.

The term is most commonly used in the financial world to describe people and companies that manage investments on behalf of others. These include, for example, investment managers that manage the assets of a pension fund.

Alternative views of asset management in the engineering environment are: the practice of managing assets to achieve the greatest return (particularly useful for productive assets such as plant and equipment), and the process of monitoring and maintaining facilities systems, with the objective of providing the best possible service to users (appropriate for public infrastructure assets).

Management

Management in businesses and organizations is the function that coordinates the efforts of people to accomplish goals and objectives by using available resources efficiently and effectively.

Management includes planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization to accomplish the goal or target. Resourcing encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and natural resources. Management is also an academic discipline, a social science whose objective is to study social organization.

Etymology

The English verb "manage" comes from the Italian maneggiare (to handle, especially tools), which derives from the two Latin words manus (hand) and agere (to act).

The French word for housekeeping, ménagerie, derived from ménager ("to keep house"; compare ménage for "household"), also encompasses taking care of domestic animals. The French word mesnagement (or ménagement) influenced the semantic development of the English word management in the 17th and 18th centuries.

GAM (company)

GAM (SIX: GAM) is an independent, pure play asset management group.

The Group sells to a wide range of client segments such as institutions, wholesale intermediaries, financial advisers, and private investors through two brands — Julius Baer Funds and GAM. The Group’s investment management business is complemented by a private labelling unit which provides outsourcing for third-party asset managers.

Headquartered in Zurich, GAM has been independently listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange since October 2009, following the separation of the former Julius Baer Group Julius Baer, and is a component of the Swiss Market Index Mid (SMIM) SIX Swiss Exchange with the symbol “GAM”. The Group has assets under management of CHF 124.2 billion (as at 30 June 2015) and employs over 1,000 staff with offices in eleven countries.

History

GAM was founded in 1983 by Gilbert de Botton, who is considered the pioneer of the "open architecture" model. In 1999, it was acquired by UBS. It remained under the UBS umbrella until Julius Baer acquired GAM and three other private banks from UBS in 2005. GAM acquired Augustus Asset Managers in 2009, and later in the year separated from Julius Baer to form an independent, pure-play asset manager. The spinoff was completed by listing GAM as a separate company in the Swiss SIX exchange.

Adidas Questra

Questra was the name given to a family of footballs originally produced by Adidas for major international events in the mid-1990s. The name was derived from an ancient word meaning "the quest for the stars."

History

The first ball of the family was simply named the Questra and was originally designed to be the official match ball of the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States. Following the convention of the addition of decorations to the established Adidas Tango style since the Azteca and the Etrusco Unico, this one featured space-themed decorations, not only due to its name, but that 1994 marked the 25th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, which is considered to be one of the most important moments in the history of the host country.

Due to the popularity of that ball, there were two new editions of the Questra released in 1996. One of them was named the "Questra Europa" and was intended to be the official match ball of UEFA Euro 1996 in England, while the other one was bearing the name "Questra Olympia" and was the official match ball of the football tournament at the 1996 Summer Olympics. Both of these balls reported colours.

J. P. Morgan

John Pierpont "J.P." Morgan (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and banker who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation during his time. In 1892, Morgan arranged the merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric. He was instrumental in the creation of the United States Steel Corporation.

At the height of Morgan's career during the early 1900s, he and his partners had financial investments in many large corporations and had significant influence over the nation's high finance and United States Congress members. He directed the banking coalition that stopped the Panic of 1907. He was the leading financier of the Progressive Era, and his dedication to efficiency and modernization helped transform American business.

Morgan died in Rome, Italy, in his sleep in 1913 at the age of 75, leaving his fortune and business to his son, John Pierpont Morgan, Jr.

Childhood and education

Morgan was born into the influential Morgan family to Junius Spencer Morgan (1813–1890) and Juliet Pierpont (1816–1884) in Hartford, Connecticut, and was raised there. Pierpont, as he preferred to be known, had a varied education due in part to the plans of his father. In the fall of 1848, Pierpont transferred to the Hartford Public School and then to the Episcopal Academy in Cheshire, Connecticut (now called Cheshire Academy), boarding with the principal. In September 1851, Morgan passed the entrance exam for The English High School of Boston, a school specializing in mathematics to prepare young men for careers in commerce. In the spring of 1852, an illness struck which was to become more common as his life progressed. Rheumatic fever left him in so much pain that he could not walk, and Junius sent him to the Azores to recover.