# Vanguard

> Vanguard is a fund-owned global investment manager serving more than 50 million investors with mutual funds, ETFs, brokerage, advice, retirement-plan services, and institutional investment capabilities. Founded by John C. Bogle in 1975, it became synonymous with low-cost index investing, but its present-day business also spans active management, fixed income, digital and human advice, direct indexing, and selected private-market solutions. Its unusual ownership model - Vanguard is owned by its U.S. funds, which are owned by their shareholders - removes outside corporate shareholders and supports a strategy of returning scale benefits through lower costs and reinvestment in investor services.

- **Founded:** 1975
- **Headquarters:** Malvern, United States
- **Founders:** John C. Bogle (Founder, former Chairman and CEO)
- **Team size:** Approximately 20,000 employees worldwide as of December 31, 2025.
- **Products:** Mutual funds, Vanguard 500 Index Fund, Exchange-traded funds, Vanguard Brokerage Services, Vanguard Digital Advisor
- **Notable:** Introduced the First Index Investment Trust in 1976, now the Vanguard 500 Index Fund, helping bring index investing to individual investors., Became the first mutual-fund group of its size to move to no-load distribution in 1977., Served more than 50 million investors worldwide by the end of 2025.

## Products & services

- **Mutual funds** — Index and actively managed stock, bond, balanced, money-market, municipal-bond, and target-date funds for individual and institutional portfolios.
- **Vanguard 500 Index Fund** — The successor to the First Index Investment Trust, which brought broad, low-cost mutual-fund indexing to individual investors.
- **Exchange-traded funds** — Low-cost equity and fixed-income ETFs spanning broad-market, factor, sector, municipal, active, and target-maturity strategies.
- **Vanguard Brokerage Services** — Online brokerage accounts for trading Vanguard and third-party funds, ETFs, stocks, bonds, and other eligible securities.
- **Vanguard Digital Advisor** — Automated portfolio management and goal-based planning using diversified Vanguard funds and ETFs.
- **Personal Advisor and Wealth Management** — Tiered hybrid and human advice covering portfolio construction, retirement, tax strategy, estate planning, and complex wealth needs.
- **Workplace and institutional services** — Retirement-plan investments, recordkeeping, target-date strategies, participant tools, research, and institutional portfolio management.
- **Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management** — Direct-indexing technology for tax-managed, customizable portfolios, built from the acquired Just Invest platform.
- **WVB public-private market solutions** — Two closed-end strategies created with Wellington and Blackstone to combine public-market and private-market exposures for eligible advised investors.

## Achievements

- Introduced the First Index Investment Trust in 1976, now the Vanguard 500 Index Fund, helping bring index investing to individual investors.
- Became the first mutual-fund group of its size to move to no-load distribution in 1977.
- Served more than 50 million investors worldwide by the end of 2025.
- Offered 465 funds worldwide as of February 28, 2026: 228 in the United States and 237 outside it.
- Reported a 0.07% asset-weighted average expense ratio for its U.S. mutual funds and ETFs in 2025.
- Announced its largest-ever expense-ratio reduction in 2025, covering 168 share classes across 87 funds and estimating more than $350 million in investor savings that year.
- Expanded Investor Choice in February 2026 by 17 funds, adding roughly 2 million eligible investors and more than $200 billion in assets.
- Vanguard target-date strategies surpassed $1 trillion in assets and served more than 15 million investors, according to Vanguard Institutional.

## Latest updates

- **2026-07** — Vanguard, Wellington, and Blackstone launched WVB All Markets Fund and WVB Blackstone All Privates Fund, initially through Bank of America Private Bank and Merrill.
- **2026-04** — Vanguard launched VDV and VDG, two developed-markets ex-U.S. style-based index ETFs.
- **2026-04** — Vanguard introduced Expert Insights, an AI-enabled portfolio-analysis tool for financial advisors.
- **2026-03** — The firm launched a suite of 10 target-maturity corporate-bond ETFs under the BondBuilder name.
- **2026-02** — Vanguard added 17 funds to Investor Choice, extending proxy-voting policy choice to about 2 million more eligible investors across more than $200 billion in assets.
- **2026-02** — Vanguard said cost reductions announced in 2025 and 2026 would deliver more than $500 million in expected savings to investors.
- **2025-12** — Vanguard and TIAA launched Target Retirement Lifetime Income Trusts for workplace retirement plans.
- **2025-11** — Vanguard launched three Wellington-managed active equity ETFs focused on U.S. value, U.S. growth, and dividend growth.

## Links

- Website: https://vanguard.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vanguard/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/vanguard_group
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/vanguard
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vanguardgroup/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vanguard

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/vanguard
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Last updated: 2026-08-11