Financial Design & Research

Financial Design & Research is the private family office of Donald Yacktman and his family, founded in 1980. Yacktman Asset Management, launched in 1992, is the SEC-registered investment adviser that manages the Yacktman Fund and other public vehicles. The two entities are legally separate but intellectually aligned — the family office's research process and investment philosophy formed the foundation for the mutual fund's strategy. Donald Yacktman transitioned day-to-day portfolio management of the public funds to his son Stephen Yacktman and Jason Subotky in 2016 (per the firm, 2016).

Donald Yacktman founded the firm and built its investment framework. His son, Stephen Yacktman, and Jason Subotky — who run Yacktman Asset Management — are understood to be involved in the family office's investment continuity. The office has never disclosed a separate CIO or investment committee distinct from the family principals. The small, concentrated operation has historically operated as an extension of the founder's own portfolio discipline.

There is no public record of the firm doing direct venture capital, private equity, or real estate investing. The investment approach visible through Yacktman Asset Management's public filings and the founder's own writings centers on publicly traded global equities, occasionally holding large cash positions when valuations are stretched. The firm is not known to participate in fund commitments to outside private-market GPs.

The wealth originated from Donald Yacktman's career as a professional money manager, first at Stein Roe & Farnham and later through the growth of Yacktman Asset Management, the public-funds business he built. His long-tenured track record — including Morningstar naming him Domestic-Stock Fund Manager of the Decade for the 2000s — generated substantial performance fees and asset-management economics that seeded the family office.

Financial Design & Research does not market co-investment capacity to outside allocators. The firm has historically operated as a proprietary capital base, not a deal-by-deal syndicate partner. Its structure — running in parallel to a mutual-fund complex — means the family's co-investment alignment is effectively with the public shareholders of the Yacktman Fund, not with small groups of institutional co-investors.