“We want to be pushing the other way on risk,” Marc Stern, chief investment officer at Bessemer, was quoted as saying. “Leaning into the prevailing wisdom is something we very much try to do.”

A variety of surveys – such as a recent global poll of fund managers by Merrill Lynch – have shown that investment managers are raising their risk appetite, determined to wring more returns from cash at a time of ultra-low interest rates.

For example, the firm, which was founded in 1907 and now boasts $55 billion in assets and 2,000 clients, recently asked BlackRock to make a custom portfolio of non-agency mortgage-backed securities, with no restrictions, the report said.  

Bessemer uses a combination of internal and external managers to handle assets and believes that having its managers participate in the markets every day helps them make stronger asset allocation decisions for clients.

Global large-cap and mid-cap equities, convertible bonds, commodities and other inflation-linked investments, as well as high-quality municipal and taxable bonds, are all managed inside the firm by a team of about 50 managers, analysts and traders.

Global-small-cap equities, high-yield bonds, mortgage-backed securities, global fixed income, hedge funds, private equity and real estate are overseen by external managers, which are in turn chosen by a subset of 30 members of the investment team.