10 Things You Didn’t Know about Oaktree Capital
Oaktree Capital is an investment firm that specializes in asset management. It does deal with individual clients, but for the most part it handles investments for large corporations. Below are 10 things that you probably didn’t already know about this particular company. Without a doubt, some of them will surprise you.
1. The company provides alternative investments
This particular company is well known for recommending investments that aren’t typically recommended by other companies who claim to specialize in similar things. Many of the investments are actually considered to be rather unconventional, meaning that most companies want nothing to do with them. With that being said, Oaktree Capital has managed to make a tremendous amount of money by recommending these types of investments to its clients. Obviously, it’s doing something right or it wouldn’t have been in business for so long, nor would it be making so much money.
2. It’s among the largest companies of its type
If you break things down and look at it only from the perspective of distressed investments, Oaktree Capital is the largest company in the world. Even without breaking it down, they’re still one of the largest firms in the world, providing sound financial advice to companies all over the globe.
3. The company deals with many kinds of investments
As previously mentioned, Oaktree Capital specializes in distressed investments. However, it doesn’t stop there. They frequently deal with all types of corporate investments as well as real estate issues. In reality, there are very few investment questions that the company is not capable of answering, nor are there many specific types of investments that the company doesn’t handle in one capacity or another.
4. It’s even involved in pension plans
The company is not only involved in pension plans, it handles roughly three quarters of the pension plans for individuals working in the United States. Therefore, there’s a better-than-average chance that your pension is being handled by Oaktree Capital.
5. They also deal with insurance companies
It certainly isn’t out of the realm of what you might expect to see from a major investment and asset management firm. They don’t necessarily deal with individual insurance policies such as auto insurance and small life insurance policies, but they certainly do get involved with the larger policies. These include major life insurance policies and even more frequently, those types of insurance policies that are drafted by major corporations.
6. They’ve been in business for a long time
In a world where asset management companies seem to come and go practically overnight, this is one that is managed to weather all of the storms that have taken out several of its competitors. In fact, it’s been in business for 23 years and by all accounts, it’s doing just as good or even better now than it ever has in the past.
7. It employs a lot of people
Oaktree Capital has a lot of different offices and within those offices, they employ just shy of 1,000 people. Obviously, this is nothing that should be taken lightly. The company not only deals with many of the major corporations that are responsible for employing people all across the world, they also employ several of them in their own right.
8. They have headquarters in Los Angeles
While the company actually has 18 different offices throughout the globe, their main headquarters is located in Los Angeles. They also have an office in New York City, one in Connecticut, and 15 other offices scattered in various countries, including London, Sydney and Tokyo, among others.
9. They deal with risk control on a daily basis
One of the reasons this company has managed to stay in business for so long is that it provides sound, if unconventional, advice to its customers. As such, the company has developed expert advice when it comes to controlling risk in the investment world. They know how to help their consumers build an extremely profitable portfolio that doesn’t put everything they have at risk in case something goes wrong. They make it a common business practice to have these built-in fail-safes, meaning that their clients are often more satisfied with their performance than with some of the other companies that don’t take this approach.
10. They’re careful who they lend money to
This is not a company that readily lends money to its customers. In fact, it has a very strict policy of only lending money to those companies that have enough tangible assets to cover the cost of whatever they’re borrowing and then some. That way, if the company fails to pay up for any reason, Oaktree Capital can come in, seize their assets, and move on to the next customer. While this sounds harsh, it’s also another reason why they have managed to stay in business when others have failed.