Investment firm Dimensional Fund Advisors (Dimensional) recently announced the company's second major U.S. office will be located in Austin, Texas, and will bring some of the country's most savvy financial minds to the Lone Star State.

Dimensional Fund Advisors Chairman and CEO David Booth said the new, full-service office will provide additional trading capabilities in the United States and allow Dimensional to better enhance services to meet the dynamic needs of clients. The second full-service office also allows the company to improve business continuity if unforeseen events create operating risks elsewhere. Other offices are located in Santa Monica, California; Sydney, Australia; London, England; Vancouver, Canada; and Chicago, Illinois.

“Dimensional Fund Advisors is a large and very successful money management company,” said Kenneth M. Jastrow II, chairman and chief executive officer of Austin-based Temple-Inland. “The high standards and proven financial skills of David Booth and his team will be a tremendous asset to this region. We are fortunate they have selected Austin for their new offices.”

Over the next few months, Dimensional will relocate 25 employees from Santa Monica, Calif., which will continue to be a primary workplace for the company's Institutional and Financial Advisor Services groups, as well as its research, trading, and operational personnel. The Austin office also plans to hire an additional 25 local employees during the next six months.

“We chose to locate in Austin because of a high quality of life, moderate living costs, and a strong entrepreneurial climate,” said Booth.

Booth said the University of Texas also provides Dimensional with an opportunity to recruit and retain a superior workforce.

David Booth and Rex Sinquefield founded Dimensional Fund Advisors in 1981. Their use of sophisticated, mathematical models for investment and the development of mutual funds has attracted top academic economists. University of Chicago Finance Professor Eugene Fama and Dartmouth Finance Professor Kenneth French are directors and consultants to the firm. Nobel laureates Myron Scholes and Robert Carhart Merton serve on Dimensional's eight-member board of directors of the mutual-fund family advised by Dimensional.

The company's employees, its board members, and a small group of outside investors privately own the company. It manages more than $100 billion of funds for institutional and registered investment advisor clients.

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