Bridgewater provides discretionary investment management services to pooled investment vehicles and single investor funds
(“funds”), and managed account clients (collectively, “Clients”). Bridgewater began investment operations in 1975, initially
providing consulting services in global markets, and in 1985, Bridgewater began managing assets for institutional investors. In
1990, Bridgewater registered as an investment adviser with the SEC. Additionally, Bridgewater publishes TheBridgewaterDaily
Observations, which is Bridgewater's flagship research publication.
In 2022, Bridgewater completed its transition from a founder-led boutique to an employee-driven institution with the formal
transition of control of Bridgewater Associates, LP to its Operating Board of Directors. The consistency of Bridgewater’s
investment philosophy and people has been a trademark of Bridgewater for nearly 50 years. Bridgewater is and has always been
independent and employee-controlled.
Bridgewater’s client and fund investor base consists of a wide array of institutional investors globally, which include, but are
not limited to, corporate and public pension funds, foreign governments and central banks, university endowments, charitable
foundations, family offices, fund of funds and similar third-party entities, and union/Taft Hartley plans.
Bridgewater structures portfolios in a manner designed to produce consistent and uncorrelated returns. Bridgewater believes
that building portfolios based on risk allocations is more effective than using capital allocations and that investors should
consider their strategic asset allocation (beta) separate from tactical moves (alpha). Bridgewater believes investors can improve
their portfolios’ overall results by separately creating a well-diversified beta portfolio that is balanced against environmental
biases and calibrated to one's targeted returns, and a well-diversified alpha portfolio that reduces systematic biases (and is
calibrated to one's targeted returns).
Bridgewater applies this approach to investing across the portfolios it manages. Bridgewater offers Clients (1) Pure Alpha, our
optimal alpha strategy (of which Pure Alpha Major Markets trades a subset of markets), (2) All Weather, our optimal beta
strategy (with variants geared to different goals, such as All Weather Sustainability for clients seeking a balanced portfolio of
sustainable assets, and All Weather China for clients seeking a balanced portfolio of Chinese assets) and (3) Tailored Strategies,
which apply Bridgewater’s portfolio construction expertise to total portfolio objectives. These include our custom risk
management plans and Defensive Alpha, which are designed to hedge the risks of our clients’ portfolios by selecting alphas from
our Pure Alpha process that have complimentary biases; Optimal Portfolio, which represents our optimal combination of alpha
and beta; the China Total Return
Strategy, which represents our optimal combination of alpha and beta in Chinese markets; our
Asia Total Return Strategy, designed to offer the highest return-to-risk ratio we can generate in Asian markets excluding China;
and our Active Sustainable Equities Strategy, which represents our best approach for optimizing return, risk, and impact goals
in public equity markets. In most cases, clients access these strategies through our commingled funds, though in select cases,
Bridgewater can tailor these strategies through a single investor fund or managed account and apply any client specific
requirements or restrictions.
Bridgewater’s investment process is overseen by an Investment Committee. While its membership evolves over time, the
Committee currently is led by Co-CIOs Bob Prince, Greg Jensen, and Karen Karniol-Tambour and is further comprised of other
senior investors. Our founder, Ray Dalio, remains a CIO Mentor, an Operating Board member, and an important part of our
community.
Bridgewater and its funds utilize the processes and technology of Bank of New York Mellon (“BNY Mellon”) and Northern Trust
(“NT”) as primary and secondary providers of fund administration, middle/back office, and custodial services. Bridgewater
retains overall responsibility for the monitoring of these services and has implemented a tri-party model whereby a secondary
provider independently replicates and verifies certain activities of the primary provider. This model adds an additional level of
protection and security for our clients and enhances business continuity capabilities.
As of December 31, 2023, Bridgewater manages Client assets on a discretionary basis in the amount of approximately
$112,500,000,000. Bridgewater does not manage Client assets on a non-discretionary basis.
Part 2A of Form ADV: Uniform Application for Investment Adviser Registration Page 5
Bridgewater’s only direct owners are (i) Bridgewater Associates Intermediate Holdings, LP (“Intermediate Holdings”), a general
partner and limited partner of Bridgewater and (ii) TrustCo LLC (“TrustCo”), a limited partner of Bridgewater. Intermediate
Holdings is the sole Member of TrustCo, and as a result, is effectively Bridgewater’s sole direct owner.
Bridgewater Associates Holdings, LLC (“BAH LLC”) is the ultimate parent entity and owns approximately 80% of Intermediate
Holdings, with the remaining approximately 20% being held by a small group of external institutional investors in the form of
non-voting, limited partnership units.
For detail regarding ownership of BAH LLC, please see Bridgewater’s Form ADV Part 1. BAH LLC, Intermediate Holdings,
TrustCo and Bridgewater are all Delaware entities.
Bridgewater’s ADV Part 1, including a listing of direct owners and executive officers, is publicly available on the SEC’s website
at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov.
Part 2A of Form ADV: Uniform Application for Investment Adviser Registration Page 6