What is an asset management RFP?
An asset management RFP is the request for proposal an institutional investor or its investment consultant sends to asset managers to fill a mandate. The asset manager's RFP team answers it with portfolio managers, client service and compliance, covering the firm, its process, performance and fees.
On this page
An asset management RFP poses the same set of questions to several asset managers, and their answers are scored to select finalists for the mandate. In another sense, the phrase refers to an RFP for asset management software or services that manage IT or physical assets, which is a different subject. On the manager's side, the RFP team writes the response with portfolio managers, client service and compliance.
How an asset management RFP works in a global equity search
In an illustrative search, a pension fund decides to appoint an outside manager for a global equity mandate, a portfolio the manager runs to requirements the fund sets. Its investment consultant, the adviser hired to run the search, sends the RFP to a shortlist of managers, and each manager's RFP team starts work on its response.
The document takes the form of any RFP, and it is also called an investment management RFP, an investment RFP or an investment request for proposal. What sets it apart is that its questions concern the firm and the people who would manage the money. CFA Institute's model RFP, a template written for small institutional investors, sets out sample questions meant to cover most of what an investor seeks from a manager. They run across firm information, product information and performance.
The pension fund's RFP follows that pattern. It asks about the firm and its ownership, its assets under management and the investment team. It then asks for the philosophy and process behind the global equity strategy, how risk is managed, the performance record and the fees. Further sections cover operations and the firm's approach to responsible investment, and a due diligence questionnaire (DDQ) may come with it.
Some questions look past the strategy at the firm's client history. The model RFP asks for tables of accounts lost and gained, then asks the manager to discuss the reasons for the lost accounts, while excluding plan terminations. In the illustrative search, the global equity response therefore explains why clients left, not just how many.
Where the RFP sits in manager selection
The RFP comes early in manager selection, after a long list or an RFI has narrowed the field and before the investor meets any manager in person. CFA Institute's authors recommend using their model RFP only as the first step in selection, because a manager's essential characteristics may not come through in a standard RFP entry.
From the long list or the RFI answers, the investor or its consultant draws up a shortlist and sends the RFP. The manager's RFP team makes its bid/no-bid call when the RFP arrives, and the response is scored alongside the other managers' answers. The strongest managers become finalists. They present to the investor and host on-site due diligence, in whichever order the investor sets, before the award.
Different people judge different stages. In a search a consultant runs, the consultant scores the written responses and recommends the finalists. The investor's own decision-makers hear the finalist presentations, weigh what due diligence found and make the appointment.
What current research shows about asset management RFPs
Current research points to the workload these RFPs create and to how teams are using AI on them. In its Cerulli Edge, US Institutional Edition for 1Q 2026, Cerulli Associates reports that RFPs continue to challenge asset management firms on resources. That pressure is why RFP teams are looking for ways to work more efficiently.
Among the institutional sales and service teams Cerulli surveyed, 81% use AI to generate and refine RFP content. Its analyst sets a limit on that trend, saying AI cannot replace the credibility of verified human communication. The data covers US institutional teams only.
How an asset management RFP differs from a DDQ and other RFPs
An asset management RFP chooses a manager for a mandate. That purpose sets it apart from a DDQ, which checks how a manager operates, and from a company's RFP for goods or services, which buys against a specification.
Asset management RFP and DDQ
A DDQ examines the manager's operations, controls and policies in more detail than the RFP's own sections on those topics. Depending on the investor, it arrives beside the RFP, as a section inside it, or after the shortlist. Standard forms come from ILPA, AIMA and the PRI.
The two documents overlap. The PRI says investors can use the questions in its responsible investment DDQ for hedge fund investors during the RFP process, in manager monitoring and in client meetings. It also says the DDQ should support a wider information-gathering process rather than be read in isolation, and it encourages investors to tailor the questions. A responsible investment answer written for the RFP can therefore meet a reworded version of the same question in the DDQ.
Asset management RFP and a goods or services RFP
A company's RFP for goods or services specifies what it wants and asks suppliers how they would deliver it and at what price. An asset management RFP has no deliverable to specify in that way. The investor judges a firm, a team, an investment process and the record behind them, then entrusts assets to the manager it picks. Fees take the place of price, read beside the team, the process and the performance rather than against a specification.
What SEQUESTO does with an asset management RFP
In SEQUESTO's agentic operating system (aOS), each asset management RFP runs as its own project, with the RFP, the DDQ and the deadlines kept together. James, SEQUESTO's AI bid agent, reads the RFP and its DDQ. Agent Force, the specialist agents, extracts every question, word or character limit, evidence request and mandatory attachment into the team's own template. Every row of every tab of a spreadsheet DDQ is read, and unclear rows come back for review.
James assigns questions to named colleagues, such as portfolio managers for the investment process, compliance for the controls and client service for the client sections. Each is notified in SEQUESTO, and James reports what is still open and who has it. He drafts each answer from the firm's documents in the Knowledge Hub and shows where it came from. Content keeps an owner and a review date, and expired content is flagged before it is reused. A question he cannot answer from those documents is marked "Needs review", never filled with a guess.
The DDQ is filled in its own spreadsheet and exported in its original structure, including multi-tab files. The RFP manager reviews and signs off on the response, and a team member submits it in the investor's or consultant's portal, since SEQUESTO does not submit on the team's behalf. From there, the response goes into the consultant's scoring, and the next step for a manager who goes through is the finalist presentation.