Clients come first – always

Janus Henderson Investors extols its clients-always-come-first principle as the foundation of its success.

Winner of Asia Asset Management’s 2026 Best of the Best Awards for CEO of the Year (Asia) for Asset Management and Best Multi-Asset Manager, the firm’s roots in Asia run deep.

Janus Henderson set up its regional hub in Singapore more than three decades ago in 1995, and has supported clients across multiple market cycles. Today, the firm serves institutional and wealth management clients across Asia, including Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. Focusing on pure active management, Janus Henderson relies on fundamental, research-driven strategies designed to outperform benchmarks over the long term.

Andrew Hendry, CEO for Asia and senior managing director and head of the Asia Client Group, notes that when he joined the firm in 2022, Janus Henderson worked with just one of the region’s top ten wealth managers. Today, it partners with nine, amid a highly competitive regional asset management landscape. Hendry attributes the firm’s progress to dependable investment capabilities and a culture focused on supporting clients – particularly during periods of uncertainty.

Strong fundamentals

The firm’s growth in Asia has been driven by a combination of exemplary client service and strong performance of actively managed strategies across equities, alternatives and multi-asset solutions.

A key example is the Janus Henderson Balanced Fund, which clinched AAM’s Best Multi-Asset Manager Award. The firm’s strategies are underpinned by an investment approach that has been applied consistently for more than 40 years and guided by a clear belief: fundamental security selection combined with dynamic asset allocation can generate outperformance over time. This philosophy is supported by deep fundamental research, experienced portfolio managers and sophisticated risk management tools, reinforced by frequent collaboration across the firm’s team-based structure.

The disciplined application of this approach has historically delivered resilience through periods of market stress and volatility. Market dislocations often create conditions for future opportunities, and maintaining discipline through rotations has proven critical to long-term success.

From uncertainty to strength

Consistency, Hendry notes, requires the ability to work through difficult periods. Reflecting on a client session last year, he recalls asking investors to consider the most emotional aspects of investing over the past 30 years. “Every year you have a reason not to invest. Every year you have a reason to be uncertain or worried. But things get better – in the market and in the world.”

Looking ahead, Hendry sees the artificial intelligence-led technology revolution – the fourth wave of computational innovation – as a powerful catalyst to move markets beyond today’s “peak uncertainty” and into the next decade-long growth cycle. “We’re just at the beginning of this ten-year cycle of innovation,” he says.

Achievements and goals

The Janus Henderson Balanced Fund exemplifies the firm’s broader investment philosophy characterised by bottom-up securities selection. An integrated global research platform brings equity and fixed income teams together to build diversified, multi-asset portfolios designed to navigate a wide range of market environments. The strategy combines a growth-oriented, concentrated equity sleeve with an actively managed fixed-income allocation, supported by a team-based model that has been in place for more than two decades. Its focus on stocks, bonds and cash only adds transparency, while the philosophy remains consistent, disciplined and repeatable.

Beyond multi-asset strategies, the firm continues to deepen its capabilities in Asia. Recent milestones include onboarding two sovereign fund clients in South Korea and China, alongside growing engagement with insurance companies attracted to Janus Henderson’s Collateralised Loan Obligations (CLO) expertise. The firm manages the world’s largest CLO exchange-traded fund and is the largest active securitised ETF manager globally. While CLOs are well established in the US and Europe, Hendry notes they remain relatively under-recognised in Asia – an opportunity the firm aims to address.

Janus Henderson is also focused on raising the profile of its global fixed-income capabilities in Asia and expanding collaborative fund partnerships with private banks and institutions, including bespoke solutions co-developed with clients.

Citing the firm’s guiding principle, Hendry concludes: “If you consistently deliver the right returns and the right level of service, clients trust you more. That trust leads to growth. It’s a simple virtuous circle, and it underpins our strategy.”