GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF BROWN ADVISORY
This Brochure relates to the investment advisory services offered by Brown Advisory LLC ("Brown
Advisory", “the firm”, or “we”). Brown Advisory is registered with the SEC as an investment
adviser pursuant to the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended.
Brown Advisory was launched in 1993 as an investment management division of Alex. Brown &
Sons. Alex. Brown & Sons was a Baltimore-based investment bank founded in 1800. In 1998,
Brown Advisory became independently owned through an employee-led buyout.
Brown Advisory is a wholly owned subsidiary of Brown Advisory Management LLC (“BAM”). BAM
is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Brown Advisory Group Holdings LLC (“BAGH”). Brown Advisory’s
controlling entity is Brown Advisory Incorporated (“BAI”), which is organized as a Maryland
corporation. BAI is the managing member of BAM.
DESCRIPTION OF ADVISORY SERVICES
Brown Advisory provides investment management services to institutions, investment
companies, high net worth individuals and families, endowments, foundations, other charitable
organizations, public/government-related clients, pension and profit-sharing plans, insurance
companies, corporations, individual retirement plans, trusts, estates, and other taxable individual
plans. We provide active investment strategies across equity, fixed income and balanced
portfolios. Certain of these strategies incorporate sustainable investment (“SI”) research in their
investment processes, which we discuss further below. We also provide strategic advisory
services to certain high net worth clients.
Typically, when providing investment management services, we have discretion to select
securities to buy and sell for a client’s account, subject to certain restrictions, limitations or other
requirements clients may impose with respect to their individual accounts. We will work with a
client to accommodate investment guidelines and restrictions so long as they do not interfere
materially with a portfolio manager’s ability to implement the investment and portfolio
construction process. We also provide non-discretionary advisory services.
Our Institutional equity investment strategies generally seek to provide clients with long-term
capital appreciation by actively selecting securities for investment in concentrated portfolios. Our
equity strategies are differentiated by (1) the market capitalization range of each strategy’s
portfolio holdings, (2) the geographic focus of each strategy, (3) the underlying style of each
strategy (i.e. growth, value, opportunistic, or income), or (4) consideration of SI criteria. In
addition to our internally managed equity strategies, we offer several sub-advised strategies to
our clients through U.S.-registered open-ended mutual funds and separately managed accounts.
Our Institutional fixed income investment strategies generally seek to provide clients with long-
term capital appreciation by allocating capital to bonds that we believe have the potential to
maximize risk-adjusted returns. This philosophy is applied to our long-only fixed income
strategies within the context of maintaining a core stability of principal value. What differentiates
each of our long-only strategies is the maturity or duration band in which each strategy operates,
the allowance of below investment-grade bonds, the focus on taxable or tax-exempt bonds, and
consideration of SI criteria for certain strategies.
Both our Institutional equity and fixed income investment strategies employ a bottom-up,
fundamental research approach in their security selection process. Our strategies strive to
outperform their respective benchmarks over the long term.
The following are some of Brown Advisory’s significant equity strategies:
Flexible Equity
Global Leaders
Large-Cap Growth
Large-Cap Sustainable Growth
Large-Cap Sustainable Value
Mid-Cap Growth
Small-Cap Growth
Small-Cap Fundamental Value
Sustainable International Leaders
Sustainable Small-Cap Core
The following are some of Brown Advisory’s significant fixed income strategies:
Enhanced Cash
Global Sustainable Total Return Bond
Intermediate Income
Limited Duration
Mortgage Securities
Municipal Bond
Sustainable Core Fixed Income
Sustainable Short Duration Fixed Income
Tax-Exempt Sustainable Fixed Income
The following are some of the significant externally sub-advised strategies:
Emerging Markets Select
Large-Cap Value
Strategic European Equity
In addition, Brown Advisory offers various customized and client-driven solutions. These
investment solutions draw from the universe of securities that are covered by our fundamental
and SI research to build portfolios that are intended to meet various needs, such as value-based
investing, outcome-based investing and thematic investing. These strategies are available as
separate accounts for our Institutional and Private Client, Endowments & Foundations (“PCE&F”)
clients.
For those clients who engage us for multi-strategy or balanced portfolio management, including
asset allocation and manager selection, we seek investments across asset classes which we
believe offer the ability to achieve the client’s long-term goals and outperform an applicable
benchmark on a risk-adjusted basis over a full market cycle. We can use a combination of active
and passive strategies, liquid and illiquid, and an array of managers in a manner we believe serves
each client’s needs, subject to their investment guidelines, restrictions and other considerations.
Our balanced portfolio management clients have access to outside managers and internally
managed strategies through an Investment
Solutions platform. This service provides clients
access to a range of investment opportunities and asset classes, including global equities,
emerging market equities, global fixed income, high-yield fixed income, private investments,
commodities, hedge funds and real estate. By combining our selective Investment Solutions
platform with our in-house resources, we seek to optimize our customized portfolio management
capabilities for clients.
In addition to our investment management services, Brown Advisory serves as the managing
member of private funds that primarily invest in publicly-traded equity securities. Affiliates of
Brown Advisory manage private funds that invest in private equity and hedge fund managers and
in venture capital investments.
We also offer family office as well as strategic advisory services for clients with complex financial,
investment, and fiduciary circumstances. These services include services such as tax planning,
intergenerational wealth transfer (including trust and estate planning), philanthropic planning,
family business advisory and wealth structuring. Within our Endowments and Foundations
business, these services include services such as spend rate planning, planned giving support and
other services.
For those institutions and nonprofits seeking an outsourced chief investment officer (“OCIO”)
solution, we advise and lead our non-profit partners through the complexities of their
investments and asset management to achieve their mission. We employ a variety of investment
services, including developing investment policies and objectives, analyzing asset allocation and
diversification, researching and selecting investment managers, providing due diligence and
performance monitoring of managers and supplying periodic performance reports and
customized education. We provide strategic support in terms of assistance with governance,
fiduciary matters, donor development and audit and tax matters. We provide operational
support in terms of custodian relations, pricing and reporting of alternative investments,
quarterly review preparation and day-to-day administrative support.
CUSTOMIZATION OF ADVISORY SERVICES
We work with our clients to provide investment advice that meets their goals and objectives. Any
client-imposed limitations or guideline restrictions are defined and outlined in the client's
investment documentation and updated as necessary. These documents address a client’s
guidelines and objectives in greater detail. Many of our Institutional clients have their own
investment policy statements. When clients provide us with their own investment policy
statements, we review the language to ensure it reflects our investment management
responsibility. When necessary, the language is adjusted and approved by both the client and
Brown Advisory before management of the account begins.
When Brown Advisory or one of its affiliates is the investment adviser to a pooled investment
vehicle, investment objectives, guidelines and any investment restrictions generally are not
tailored to the needs of individual investors in those vehicles. Rather, they are described in the
offering documents for the vehicles.
WRAP FEE PROGRAMS AND MODEL DELIVERY
Brown Advisory is retained by sponsors of certain bundled “wrap-fee” arrangements. The
sponsors have primary responsibility for client communications and service and for executing
portfolio transactions. We provide investment management services to the clients of the
sponsors. Generally, clients pay a single, all-inclusive (or “wrap”) fee charged by the sponsor that
covers asset management, trade execution, custody, performance monitoring and reporting
through the sponsor. The sponsor typically pays Brown Advisory a portion of the wrap fee based
on the assets of clients invested in the applicable Brown Advisory strategy in the wrap fee
program.
Brown Advisory also provides investment advisory services for select model-based separately
managed account programs of unaffiliated managers and financial advisors. In these programs,
we typically provide a non-discretionary model portfolio to the program manager, who is then
responsible for executing transactions and coordinating account guidelines and restrictions with
the underlying separate account client. In exchange for these services, we receive a fee from the
unaffiliated manager or financial advisor.
Wrap accounts and model delivery accounts are not managed identically to Institutional
accounts. Purchases and sales that are implemented for Institutional accounts will not always be
reflected in wrap and model delivery accounts. The sponsors and the managers of these
programs generally retain the ultimate discretion over how trades are implemented in client
accounts. In addition, the sponsors and managers may impose guidelines and restrictions that
are different from those governing the strategy. For these reasons, clients should expect the
holdings of wrap and model delivery accounts to differ from one another and from that of the
relevant strategy.
ASSETS UNDER MANAGEMENT
As of December 31, 2023, Brown Advisory had approximately $108.3 billion in assets under
management. Of that total, approximately $96.5 billion represents assets managed on a
discretionary basis and $11.8 billion represents assets managed on a non-discretionary basis.
These values do not include client assets under management or advisement by any of our
affiliated firms, including Brown Investment Advisory & Trust Company, Brown Advisory Limited,
Brown Advisory Investment Solutions Group LLC, NextGen Venture Partners, LLC (“NextGen”),
and Signature Financial Management, Inc. (doing business as Brown Advisory) (“Signature”).