The Vanguard Group is an American investment management

Investment management

Investment management is the professional management of various securities and assets in order to meet specified investment goals for the benefit of the investors...

 company based in Malvern, Pennsylvania

Malvern, Pennsylvania

Malvern is a borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,998 at the 2010 census. The main road through the borough is King Street, although the borough is also bordered by Paoli Pike on the south, and is near US 30 on the north. The primary cross street is Warren...

, that manages approximately $1.6 trillion in assets. It offers mutual fund

Mutual fund

A mutual fund is a professionally managed type of collective investment scheme that pools money from many investors to buy stocks, bonds, short-term money market instruments, and/or other securities.- Overview :...

s and other financial products and services to individual and institutional investors in the United States and abroad. Founder and former chairman John C. Bogle is credited with the creation of the first index fund

Index fund

An index fund or index tracker is a collective investment scheme that aims to replicate the movements of an index of a specific financial market, or a set of rules of ownership that are held constant, regardless of market conditions.-Tracking:Tracking can be achieved by trying to hold all of the...

 available to individual investors, the popularization of index funds generally, and driving costs down across the mutual fund industry.

Vanguard is unusual among mutual-fund companies since it is owned by the funds themselves.