subsidiary industry investment management founded 1924 headquarters 111 huntington avenue boston massachusetts u.s. key people robert manning co ceo & chairman michael roberge co ceo president & cio products mutual funds asset management aum us 445.8 billion february 28 2015 number of employees 1 700 december 2013 parent sun life financial website mfs.com mfs investment management mfs is an american based global investment manager formerly known as massachusetts financial services . founded in 1924 mfs is one of the oldest asset management companies in the world and has been credited with pioneering the mutual fund . 1 the very first mutual fund the massachusetts investors trust fund is still in operation today . currently mfs has usd 413.2 billion in assets under management . 2 contents 1 history 2 see also 3 references 4 external links history edit the company was founded in 1924 by l. sherman adams charles h. learoyd and ashton l. carr . 3 the company s oldest fund is the massachusetts investors trust a mutual fund created with 50 000 at the company s inception and reported to be the world s first open end investment fund . 3 the company used brokerage channels to market its shares to the public and later expanded to 14 million in assets over the next five years . 3 during the stock market crash of 1929 the fund survived an 83 % loss and went on to create a second fund in 1934 . by 1959 the massachusetts investors trust fund had become the largest mutual fund in the united states . in 1969 mit was reorganized as massachusetts financial services mfs to reflect the firm s broadened scope of products and services . in 1976 mfs offered one of the nation s first national municipal bond funds managed municipal bond trust and in 1981 mfs launched the country s first globally diversified fixed income fund massachusetts financial international trust bond portfolio . in 1986 mfs offered the first closed end high yield municipal bond fund to be traded on the new york stock exchange . in 1982 the company was acquired by sun life financial of canada . in 1998 mfs chairman and chief executive a. keith brodkin died causing a major shift in top management . mfs s assets under management grew from 55 billion to 90 billion between 1997 and 1998 and was reported to be the fastest growing company amongst the twenty largest that funds sold through brokers . 4 during the early 2000s mfs and five other mutual fund companies in the boston area were investigated by massachusetts and new hampshire regulators . that same year the securities and exchange commission alleged that mfs made false and misleading statements in its fund prospectus about its policy on market trading and market timing . mfs paid 350 million to settle state and federal fraud charges . mfs appointed robert pozen as non executive chairman from 2004 to 2010 . 5 mfs then implemented a set of company reforms to inform investors about fees keep fund boards independent and create deterrents to market timing . these changes were intended to address the concerns of regulators and lawmakers and were praised by fund industry analysts and consumer advocates . these reforms ended the soft dollar arrangements which allowed the swapping of brokerage commissions for market research and data . from 2010 to today assets under management grew from 253 billion to more than 413 billion . citation needed headquarters of mfs see also edit list of mutual fund families mutual fund references edit 85 innovations 1917 1938 forbes.com . mfs corporate fact sheet . horizontal tab character in title at position 5 help a b c 85 innovations 1917 1983 december 23 2002 forbes.com retrieved june 2011 amey stone mfs mit a fund that epitomizes long term investing bloomberg august 13 1998 retrieved july 19 2011 . andrew caffrey and jeffrey krasner mass . n.h. broaden probe boston globe november 19 2003 retrieved july 19 2011 . external links edit company web site retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title mfs investment management & oldid 743301652 categories companies based in bostoninvestment management companies of the united statesmutual fund familiesprivately held companies based in massachusettshidden categories cs1 errors invisible charactersall articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from september 2016 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 9 october 2016 at 01 22 . text is available under the creative commons 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